LAKE CHARLES, La. (KPLC) – The third annual Southwest Louisiana Cyber Security Summit is being held at the Lake Charles Civic Center. The goal of the conference is to provide advanced insight and education on the growing threat of cybercrime.
“Three years ago, they started the Southwest Louisiana Cyber Security to just bring awareness to businesses and industries about what threats are out there, just whenever it comes to cybersecurity and cyber attacks,” said AOP VP of Sales Brian Bernhardt.
Cybercrime continues to be more prevalent and damaging to those impacted by it, requiring organizations of all sizes to become more aware, vigilant, and skilled at preventing and detecting potential threats.
“We’re continuing to see lots of groups from large nation states that are coming in, attacking local people, and it’s not even just the large companies, the healthcare systems and everything like that; it’s the small businesses too,” said Victoria Walling of CMA. “So we just need to continue to stay vigilant because as long as they’re making money, they’re going to keep doing it.”
The Louisiana Region remains a prime target for cybercrime at all levels, due in part to ongoing disaster recovery, as well as the large industrial base.
“It doesn’t matter the size of your company, it could be a mom-and-pop shop as big as four or five people all the way up to one of the larger chemical plants in the area; no one’s immune to it,” said Bernhardt.
“Your data’s the most important thing to anybody,” said Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s Office digital forensic investigator Jerod Abshire. “They want the exposure, they want to show the general public that a service that they had is vulnerable and use that service or use that local business as leverage so that they can make money.”
“Every hospital, every school system, every government entity is getting hit, It’s where the most confidential data is, and that’s where going to get the money from,” said Walling. “So they’ll take your data and you have to pay them to get it back, and there are sometimes you have to pay them to not to release it; so it’s, they’re just making money off of stealing your data.”
“At the end of the day, it’s not. If you’re gonna get attacked it’s when you’re gonna get attacked,” said Bernhardt.
The SWLA Cyber Summit will continue tomorrow from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and it is free to anyone who wants to know more about cybercrime and how to prevent it.
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