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Thursday October 29, 2026
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443191
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Cybersecurity Summit Registration
8:00 AM - 9:00 AM
Conference Center Exhibitor Area
Cybersecurity Summit Registration
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General Session
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14/300
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Thursday October 29, 2026
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443513
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Cybersecurity Summit 2026 - Opening Session
9:00 AM - 9:40 AM
Hidalgo/Cameron/Starr/Brooks/Willacy Room
Cybersecurity Summit 2026 - Opening Session
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General Session
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10/350
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Thursday October 29, 2026
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443146
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The Browser Is the New Endpoint. Are You Securing It?
9:45 AM - 10:40 AM
Cameron County Room
From student information systems and government portals to cloud applications and generative AI, the browser has become the primary workspace for education and government employees. Yet traditional security tools often have limited visibility into what happens inside it.
What happens when a trusted user accesses sensitive records from an unmanaged device? When confidential information is pasted into a personal AI account? Or when a legitimate cloud session becomes a path for data theft?
In this session, we'll explore how browser-based security brings Zero Trust principles directly to where users work—protecting sensitive data, controlling access, and reducing risk without disrupting productivity. Through real-world scenarios and live demonstrations, we'll show how to secure the modern workspace without making life harder for users or IT teams.
PRESENTER: Stas Bilder, Palo Alto Networks
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Threat Intelligence & Incident Response
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9/63
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Thursday October 29, 2026
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443144
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Things That Go Bump in the Network: A K-12 Security Checkup
9:45 AM - 10:40 AM
Hidalgo County Room
Every district has a few skeletons in the closet: apps nobody signed off on, admin permissions nobody remembers granting, and accounts that should've been deactivated months ago. None of it announces itself until something goes wrong.
This session walks through ClassLink’s tools for finding and fixing those hidden risks: application visibility to flag what's actually running, passwordless logins, tighter limits on admin-level access, layered login protection, scheduled account retirement so old accounts don't linger, and monitoring to catch suspicious activity early.
Attendees leave with a concrete list of ClassLink features to evaluate for closing the gaps that make district IT teams nervous this time of year.
Presenter: Kendall Hong and Kimberly Gonzalez, Classlink
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Security Operations
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2/112
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Thursday October 29, 2026
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443150
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Zero Trust in K-12: Hardening Google Workspace Against Modern Threats
9:45 AM - 10:40 AM
Laguna Madre Room
As cyber threats targeting educational institutions become more sophisticated, traditional perimeter defense is no longer enough. This session explores how to implement a framework using Google Workspace and the Google Admin Console. We will walk through configuring Context-Aware Access policies, enforcing adaptive multi-factor authentication (MFA), and locking down API controls to prevent unauthorized third-party app integrations. Attendees will leave with actionable strategies to shrink their domain's attack surface without hindering classroom productivity.
PRESENTER: Erick Buenrostro, Enable Momentum
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Security Operations
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5/63
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Thursday October 29, 2026
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443148
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TEA K-12 Cybersecurity Initiative: Region 1 Review and Discussion
9:45 AM - 10:40 AM
Starr County Room
Join the Texas Education Agency for a review of the K-12 Cybersecurity Initiative, including statewide and Region 1 progress, available cybersecurity services, the EDR realignment effort, and the role of shared threat intelligence. The session will also provide an opportunity for school systems to discuss implementation challenges, identify additional support needs, and offer feedback on a developing K-12 Cybersecurity Maturity Model.
PRESENTER: Daniel Ramirez, Texas Education Agency
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Cybersecurity Leadership & Strategic Risk Management
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5/63
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Thursday October 29, 2026
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443147
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AI/SI & Cyber Threat Trends
9:45 AM - 10:40 AM
Willacy County Room
This briefing examines AI/SI and cyber threat trends from a law enforcement perspective, highlighting evolving criminal tactics, AI/SI enabled threats, ransomware, and the growing challenges facing organizations and cyber security professionals.
PRESENTER: David Rodriguez, FBI
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Cybersecurity Leadership & Strategic Risk Management
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19/63
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Thursday October 29, 2026
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443152
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Cybersecurity Summit Sponsor Break
10:45 AM - 10:59 AM
Conference Center Exhibitor Area
Cybersecurity Summit Sponsor Break
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General Session
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20/300
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Thursday October 29, 2026
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443158
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From Hashes to Plaintexts: A Deep Dive into Hashcat and Offensive Password Cracking
11:00 AM - 11:59 AM
Brooks County Room
This session delivers a practical, deep-dive guide to offensive password cracking using Hashcat. What began as a real-world forensic recovery task—unlocking a laptop for a grieving family—evolved into a specialized focus on the mechanics of hash cracking, threat actor methodologies, and competitive credential recovery.
PRESENTER: Roy Vecchio
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Hack Track (Red Team)
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3/63
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Thursday October 29, 2026
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443154
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Ghost Accounts: The Cybersecurity Threat You Can’t See
11:00 AM - 11:59 AM
Cameron County Room
Every school district has accounts that should have disappeared but still linger in the shadows. Former employees, withdrawn students, forgotten contractors, duplicate identities, and unused access can become ghost accounts that create serious cybersecurity risks.
We’ll explore practical strategies for strengthening the identity lifecycle, from onboarding through offboarding, while reducing unnecessary access and improving visibility across your digital environment.
Ensure the only ghosts haunting your district are the ones wearing costumes!
PRESENTER: Kimberly Gonzalez, Classlink
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Cybersecurity Leadership & Strategic Risk Management
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5/63
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|
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Thursday October 29, 2026
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443153
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AI Accelerates. Analysts Decide: Building a Human-Led, AI-Enabled SOC
11:00 AM - 11:59 AM
Hidalgo County Room
Cybercriminals are using AI to operate faster, automate techniques, and increase the scale of attacks. At the same time, organizations are adopting AI across their own environments, creating new questions around visibility, access, risk, and control. Security teams need to move just as quickly, but speed alone isn't enough.
In this session, attendees will explore how AI can strengthen security operations while keeping human judgment at the center. We’ll look at how AI-assisted detection, investigation, prioritization, and response can help reduce operational burden and accelerate decision-making, while experienced analysts validate threats, assess business impact, and guide the appropriate response.
The session will also examine the shift from purely reactive defense toward pre-emptive security, including reducing unnecessary attack surface, identifying risky or atypical activity, and disrupting potential attack paths before they can escalate. Combined with greater visibility into emerging AI usage and risk, this approach enables organizations to move from simply reacting faster to proactively reducing opportunities for attackers.
PRESENTER: Andrei Ionescu, Bitdefender, Inc.
Key Takeaway: AI should do more than accelerate detection and response. Combined with human expertise and pre-emptive security, it can help organizations reduce risk earlier, shrink the attack surface, and keep people in control of critical security decisions.
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Security Operations
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2/112
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|
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Thursday October 29, 2026
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443160
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AI Governance & Compliance: Securing Gemini and Leveraging Google Vault
11:00 AM - 11:59 AM
Laguna Madre Room
As generative AI becomes integrated into daily staff workflows, establishing institutional boundaries and compliance standards is vital. This session breaks down the administrative, security, and legal considerations of deploying Gemini across your domain. We will demonstrate how to configure organizational access rules, prevent proprietary data from being exposed to public models, and manage retention policies. Additionally, attendees will learn how to use Google Vault for eDiscovery and audit trails of AI conversations.
PRESENTER: Erick Buenrostro, Enable Momentum
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Threat Intelligence & Incident Response
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7/63
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|
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Thursday October 29, 2026
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443157
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DHS Cybersecurity Advisory
11:00 AM - 11:59 AM
Starr County Room
U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency discussion on emerging cyber threats.
PRESENTER: Todd Vasilou, U.S. Department of Homeland Security
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Threat Intelligence & Incident Response
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25/63
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Thursday October 29, 2026
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443155
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Apple Tech and Learning Update - Fall 2026
11:00 AM - 11:59 AM
Willacy County Room
Discover how OS 27 empowers education with advanced intelligence, an entirely new Siri experience, enhanced child safety and family controls, and smoother everyday workflows. Explore new developer technologies for building AI-powered apps, plus device management improvements that give IT teams greater control and flexibility. See how these updates unlock new possibilities for productivity, creativity, learning, assessment, and secure technology management across education.
PRESENTER: Dr. David Hernandez and Brannon Stegall, Apple
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Cybersecurity for Educators
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2/63
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Thursday October 29, 2026
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443161
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Cybersecurity Summit Lunch
12:00 PM - 12:59 PM
Conference Center Exhibitor Area
Lunch Sponsor
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General Session
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23/63
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|
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Thursday October 29, 2026
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443169
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Three Months in the Trenches: Threats, Patterns, and What We Observed
1:00 PM - 1:59 PM
Brooks County Room
This session is a high-level threat brief on the attacks our SOC observed over the past few months, with practical takeaways for defenders at every level.
PRESENTER: Kenneth Castillo & Matthew Navarro, Recon Infosec
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Threat Intelligence & Incident Response
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7/63
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|
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Thursday October 29, 2026
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443164
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Combatting the Tech-Lash: Turning Parent Anxiety Into District Advantage
1:00 PM - 1:59 PM
Cameron County Room
The headlines are loud, the legislation is moving, and parents want answers. How CIOs respond to screen time and AI concerns in the next 12 months will define ed-tech programs for years.
In this session, you'll explore:
- What's driving the tech-lash — and why it's not going away
- How districts are responding to screen time scrutiny with data, not defensiveness
- What AI governance looks like in practice, from policy to parent communication
- Tools and strategies that give families visibility without adding to your team's workload.
Sergio Villegas from Lightspeed Systems will share strategies and lessons learned for addressing the tech-last — and why getting ahead of the conversation changes everything. Bring your questions. Join the hottest conversation in ed-tech — this session is built for discussion!
PRESENTER: Sergio Villegas, Lightspeed Systems
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Cybersecurity Leadership & Strategic Risk Management
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5/63
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Thursday October 29, 2026
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443163
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Beyond Best Practices: A Cyber Risk Strategy for Education
1:00 PM - 1:59 PM
Hidalgo County Room
Building a cyber-resilient strategy starts with understanding your organization's most critical assets and developing a plan to protect them. Too often, security programs are built around generic best practices without fully considering the unique operational, academic, and data protection challenges facing educational institutions.
In this session, we'll explore the risks that matter most to K-12 schools and higher education organizations, examine how the evolving threat landscape is impacting those priorities, and discuss how AI is changing both the nature of cyber threats and what organizations should consider truly at risk.
PRESENTER: Dan Backo, Acrisure Cyber Services
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Cybersecurity Leadership & Strategic Risk Management
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2/63
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|
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Thursday October 29, 2026
|
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443171
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Reinventing Security Operations, Intelligence, and GRC for the AI Era
1:00 PM - 1:59 PM
Laguna Madre Room
In this session, we'll explore the risks that matter most to K-12 schools and higher education organizations, examine how the evolving threat landscape is impacting those priorities, and discuss how AI is changing both the nature of cyber threats and what organizations should consider truly at risk.
PRESENTER: Dirce E. Hernandez, South Texas College
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Cybersecurity Leadership & Strategic Risk Management
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6/63
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Thursday October 29, 2026
|
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443167
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Hands-on Encounter Lab
1:00 PM - 1:59 PM
Starr County Room
Join Dan Van Voorhis for an immersive, hands-on Encounter Lab featuring two interactive experiences. Attendees will challenge their problem-solving skills through an AI Escape Room, navigating AI-driven scenarios that reflect today's evolving threat landscape, followed by a guided Identity Threat Protection lab where participants gain practical, hands-on exposure to detecting and stopping identity-based attacks. This session is perfect for security practitioners looking for an engaging, skills-focused learning experience that goes beyond the typical conference session.
PRESENTER: Dan Van Voorhis, CrowdStrike
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Hack Track (Red Team)
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3/63
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Thursday October 29, 2026
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443165
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Securing the Lone Star State: Leveraging Threat Intelligence and Incident Response in the Public Sector
1:00 PM - 1:59 PM
Willacy County Room
As malicious foreign cyber actors, ransomware syndicates, and nation-state threats increasingly target public sector entities and critical infrastructure, defending government networks requires a coordinated, intelligence-led approach. This session explores how Texas is transforming its cybersecurity posture through the establishment and operation of the Texas Cyber Command (TXCC). Attendees will examine the current threat landscape facing the state—grounded in recent data such as tens of thousands of daily blocked network events, widespread data breaches, and active ransomware campaigns.
PRESENTER: Richard Morse, Texas Cyber Command
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Threat Intelligence & Incident Response
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18/63
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Thursday October 29, 2026
|
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443178
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Lost in Translation: Exploiting LLMs Through Multilingual Prompt Injection
2:00 PM - 2:59 PM
Brooks County Room
Most prompt injection vulnerability assessments for LLMs focus exclusively on English-language attacks. But what happens when threat actors pivot to other languages? This session explores the largely unresearched impact of language on prompt injection effectiveness. We will share our research findings on whether non-English prompts bypass security filters more successfully, and quantify the difference in attack success rates across various languages.
PRESENTER: Damian Villarreal. UTRGV
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Hack Track (Red Team)
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1/63
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|
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Thursday October 29, 2026
|
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443173
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Beyond the AI Headlines: Shadow AI, Exposed Data, and the Road to Domain Admin
2:00 PM - 2:59 PM
Cameron County Room
Every week brings new headlines about AI-powered attacks, autonomous hackers, and the next wave of cyber threats. Those risks deserve attention—but in K–12 environments, penetration tests continue to uncover a more basic problem: districts are still leaving ordinary attack paths open. Exposed credentials, excessive privileges, weak segmentation, and insecure administrative practices can give an attacker a route from a standard account to Domain Admin without any AI or sophisticated exploit.
This session examines both sides of the current AI conversation:
The Basics Attackers Still Exploit
- How testers use routine misconfigurations to move from a standard account to sensitive files, administrative tools, and credentials.
- Why attackers often do not need AI when the fundamentals are still exposed.
- Which recurring weaknesses we find across K–12 environments—and how they combine to create full-domain risk.
Where AI Creates New Concerns
- How Shadow AI—staff and students using unapproved AI tools—can move sensitive district data outside the district’s visibility and control.
- What can happen when student records, staff information, credentials, incident details, or other sensitive material are uploaded without clear rules for retention, access, reuse, or deletion.
- Why districts may struggle to determine what data was uploaded, which accounts or vendors can access it, and whether copies remain after the original user deletes them.
- How to pair practical AI-use guidance with foundational controls so the response is not just “ban the tool,” but reduce exposure while preserving legitimate productivity.
You’ll leave with a clearer view of where AI genuinely changes the risk—and where fixing the basics remains the fastest way to reduce the likelihood of a full-domain compromise.
PRESENTER: Jason Mull, Lockstep Technology Group
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Hack Track (Red Team)
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5/63
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|
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Thursday October 29, 2026
|
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443172
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You Can’t Fix Everything: How Exposure Management Helps Security Teams Prioritize What Matters
2:00 PM - 2:59 PM
Hidalgo County Room
Security teams have more vulnerabilities, configurations, assets, identities, and potential attack paths to monitor than they can realistically address. And while traditional severity scores can indicate how serious a weakness could be, they don’t necessarily explain whether an attacker can reach it in a specific environment or what could happen next.
This session explores a different approach: exposure management. We’ll look at how organizations can connect visibility across internal and external attack surfaces with attack-path context to better understand which exposures create meaningful risk to critical assets. We’ll also explore how reducing unnecessary access and capabilities can shrink the opportunities available to attackers before an incident occurs.
Attendees will leave with practical ideas for shifting the security conversation from “How many findings do we have?” to “Which exposures can actually lead somewhere important, and what action will reduce that risk?
The result is a more focused, prevention-oriented approach that helps lean security teams concentrate their resources where they can have the greatest impact.
PRESENTER: Andrei Ionescu, Bitdefender, Inc.
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Cybersecurity Leadership & Strategic Risk Management
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10/63
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|
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Thursday October 29, 2026
|
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443179
|
Preparing for the Post Quantum Era
2:00 PM - 2:59 PM
Laguna Madre Room
Q-Day is rapidly approaching. Learn how it threatens today’s encryption and what your organization must do before the Post Quantum Era begins.
PRESENTER: Jose Padilla, Fortinet
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Cybersecurity Leadership & Strategic Risk Management
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5/63
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Thursday October 29, 2026
|
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443176
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The AI You Already Approved: Governing AI That Arrived in an Update
2:00 PM - 2:59 PM
Starr County Room
Most of the AI in your company never went through AI review. It showed up as a feature inside software you approved years ago, under a contract written before the feature existed. Third-party risk, access reviews and DLP all miss it for the same reason: nobody bought anything. This session covers how to find it, the contract terms that catch it at renewal, and how to govern it where people use it.
PRESENTER: Liz Morton, Koda Security
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Cybersecurity Leadership & Strategic Risk Management
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8/63
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|
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Thursday October 29, 2026
|
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443175
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Cyber Resiliency in the Enterprise
2:00 PM - 2:59 PM
Willacy County Room
The presentation centers on the idea of creating and maintaining a cyber resilient system across all layers of an organization from both defensive and offensive sides.
PRESENTER: Dr. Reynaldo Anzaldua, UTRGV
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Cybersecurity Leadership & Strategic Risk Management
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9/63
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Thursday October 29, 2026
|
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443186
|
AI Transformation Workshop
3:15 PM - 4:15 PM
Brooks County Room
The AI Readiness Security Workshop_v1 1 2 is a structured assessment designed to help organizations adopt generative AI securely while minimizing risks such as sensitive data exposure, shadow AI usage, and inadequate governance. The workshop combines data collection, discovery, analysis, and expert-led recommendations to evaluate an organization’s AI security posture across key areas including data protection, identity and access controls, shadow AI visibility, vendor governance, and workforce readiness. The outcome is a comprehensive report with actionable recommendations that enable faster and safer AI adoption, reduce data leak risks, establish clear governance policies, and provide a practical roadmap for secure AI implementation.
PRESENTER: Jonathan Hayot, Check Point Software Technologies
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Cybersecurity Leadership & Strategic Risk Management
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7/63
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|
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Thursday October 29, 2026
|
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443182
|
Tales from the Trenches
3:15 PM - 4:15 PM
Cameron County Room
Tales from the Trenches featuring real ransomware stories during this interactive session.
PRESENTER: Steven Kellerhals, Arctic Wolf
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Threat Intelligence & Incident Response
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9/63
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|
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Thursday October 29, 2026
|
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443181
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Making the Business Case for Cybersecurity
3:15 PM - 4:15 PM
Hidalgo County Room
Cybersecurity may be the driver, but smoother logins, saved staff hours, and fewer help desk tickets are what get budget approved. In this session, we'll cover the stats, stories, and talking points K-12 leaders need to win over non-technical stakeholders to make the ROI case for everyone, not just IT.
PRESENTER: Audrey Cisneros & Erin Lancaster, CLEVER
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Cybersecurity Leadership & Strategic Risk Management
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0/63
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Thursday October 29, 2026
|
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443187
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South Texas College Cybersecurity Clinic
3:15 PM - 4:15 PM
Laguna Madre Room
This presentation provides an overview of South Texas College’s Cybersecurity Clinic, the first initiative of its kind in the Rio Grande Valley. The clinic was established through a $467,909 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant. Led by experienced faculty, the clinic gives students who are nearing completion of an associate degree in cybersecurity or a Bachelor of Applied Technology in Computer and Information Technologies the opportunity to provide free cybersecurity services to under-resourced local organizations. This combination of community service and hands-on learning strengthens the region’s cybersecurity resilience while helping students gain practical, career-ready experience. The presentation highlights the clinic’s structure, services, and key outcomes from its first year of operation.
PRESENTER: Nicholas Hinojosa, South Texas College
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Cybersecurity for Educators
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8/63
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|
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Thursday October 29, 2026
|
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443185
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Accelerating Threat Detection and Response with Integrated AI and Threat Hunting
3:15 PM - 4:15 PM
Starr County Room
K-12 security teams are being asked to defend more than ever with less than ever. Student and staff data, learning platforms, and district operations are high-value targets, yet most districts operate with a handful of IT staff and no dedicated analysts. Alert volume keeps climbing, attackers move faster, and the gap between “something looks off” and “we know what happened” is where incidents turn into disruptions.
This session shows how natively integrated AI and proactive threat hunting can close that gap without adding headcount. Using the SentinelOne Singularity Platform in a live demonstration, we will walk through the full investigation lifecycle: from an initial detection, to natural-language questions in Purple AI, to agentic investigation that assembles context and suggests next steps, to a hunt for related activity across the environment. Attendees will see how an analyst with limited query-language experience can ask plain-English questions and get actionable answers in minutes rather than hours.
We will also cover how threat hunting expertise, delivered through Wayfinder Essentials, extends the reach of a small team by proactively looking for adversary behavior that automated detections alone may miss. The session will focus on the operational value of integration: one platform, one data set, and one workflow, rather than stitching together separate tools while an incident is underway.
Attendees will learn:
- How natural language investigation and agentic AI reduce the skill and time barriers to effective triage, investigation, and response
- How proactive threat hunting complements automated detection and shortens attacker dwell time
- How native integration across detection, investigation, and hunting reduces tool sprawl and analyst fatigue
PRESENTER: Briana Lopez-Urteaga, SentinelOne
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Threat Intelligence & Incident Response
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6/63
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Thursday October 29, 2026
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443184
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Looking towards Agentic AI
3:15 PM - 4:15 PM
Willacy County Room
We are rapidly moving past the era of prompt-and-response chatbots. ""Agentic AI"" represents the next major leap in artificial intelligence: systems capable of understanding complex goals, formulating independent plans, and executing multi-step tasks across various tools and environments. This session will explore the foundational concepts of AI agents, the transition from human-driven workflows to AI-driven execution, and how organizations can strategically prepare for this autonomous future.
PRESENTER: David B Luna, Elastic
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Cybersecurity for Educators
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3/63
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|
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Thursday October 29, 2026
|
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443189
|
Cybersecurity Summit Closing Session
4:20 PM - 4:30 PM
Hidalgo/Cameron/Starr/Brooks/Willacy Room
Cybersecurity Summit Closing Session
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General Session
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17/350
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