Agenda:

2:30 - 3:00, Check in and Networking

3:00 – 3:15, Opening Remarks

3:15 – 4:00, Speaker 1:  Bill Bernard - Between Two Firewalls

4:00  - 4:45, Speaker 2:   Mark Milhouse - Founder of Hacker Sidekick

4:45 – 5:00, Closing Comments 

5:00 - 6:00, Networking

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Welcome back to the ISSA Chicago.  Meeting date changed to August 13 (not Aug 6) due to BlackHat / DefCon in Vegas.

Thanks to our members, guests & sponsors for a very successful SecureX Cruise at Navy Pier. It was another wonderful event.

Please join us on Thurs, August 13 at Carlucci Restaurant in Rosemont.  Meeting is 3 - 5pm with networking time at 5 - 6pm.

https://www.tickettailor.com/events/issachicago/2142721

Remember to register asap, as seats are limited.  Cost is FREE for ISSA members.  CTC members & Students are $20, and non-members are $30.  US Military Veterans are FREE, as well.  Entry includes light food and 1 drink during the networking hour.

Our featured speakers are Bill Bernard and Mark Milhouse, two local cybersecurity practitioners who will share their knowledge with our ISSA Chicago Chapter members & guests.  Presentation titles, abstracts and speaker bios are here:

Bill Bernard's presentation is "Gen AI in the Enterprise: The Best Argument Yet for Data Lifecycle Management".

As companies (and even often as individuals) we tend to be data hoarders. After all, storage is "cheap" traditionally. Generally there hasn't been much downside to this mentality, but now the game has changed. Gen AI has made it into our environments, and we're giving it access to the hoard under the mountain as if Smaug has just wandered off, never to return. But how are we governing what data the AI has access to? And how are we accounting for the fact that current generations of Gen AI solutions are notoriously bad at identifying outdated information from current data? I'm afraid that it is time to revisit that old specter: data lifecycle management. This time we need our peers onboard. (published URL: https://www.between-two-firewalls.com/generative-ai-in-the-enterprise-the-best-argument-yet-for-data-lifecycle-management/)

Bio: Some call him an industry veteran. Some call him a crusty curmudgeon. Bill is a Field CTO & Cyber Storyteller, and has been in Cybersecurity from before we called it that. His career has covered the spectrum from IT to IS practitioner and architect, through to VAR and vendor technical seller, to presales team builder to Field CTO. Never afraid to share an informed opinion, and always willing to listen to the same from others, Bill looks forward to debates over drinks, discussions over food, and insights at any time. Bill hails from the greater Chicago area.

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Mark Milhouse's Presentation is "Mythos and the Human SOC: Why AI Has to Support Your Analysts, Not Replace Them"

Since Claude Mythos proved an AI can find and exploit zero-days on its own, the loudest question in security has been whether the machines are coming for the analyst's job. It is the wrong question. The teams that win the next few years will not be the ones that hand the SOC to an autonomous system. They will be the ones that put AI to work in support of their people, with humans in command of the decisions that carry real consequences. This talk makes the case for the human-led, AI-supported SOC. It looks at what AI genuinely does well today, triage, enrichment, and detection drafting, and where giving it the wheel goes wrong, from automation bias to confidently wrong verdicts. Then it lays out how to design the operator and the agent to work as a team, so analysts move faster without losing judgment or accountability. You will leave with a practical model for adopting AI in the SOC that makes your people stronger instead of sidelined.

Bio: Technology leader and AI practitioner with 15+ years of experience building and scaling teams, products, and platforms across enterprise, startup, and global environments. His career spans organizational leadership, enterprise architecture, AI/ML systems, and cybersecurity — with a consistent thread of taking ownership of hard problems and delivering results. Beyond work, he's applied technology leadership in humanitarian settings — serving as a technology strategist during the Ukraine refugee crisis, organizing hackathons for earthquake detection in Albania, and volunteering in disaster relief from Hurricane Katrina through Hurricane Irene. Mark is a Marine Corps veteran with five years of service as a Signals Intelligence NCO, and driven by the intersection of AI, leadership, and building teams that deliver meaningful impact.