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Majors & Degrees

DakotaCon returns to DSU this weekend

March 30, 2016

DakotaCon returns to the campus of Dakota State University this year for another three full days of presentations and trainings from experts in the security world.

Kicking off on Friday, April 1, the premier event will feature speakers including: Dave Kennedy, CEO of TrustedSec; Eric Smith, senior partner and principal consultant at Lares Consulting; Michael Iedema, a DSU alumnus and senior engineer at Range Networks; Corey Steele, network security engineer at High Point Networks; Ian Malloy, who currently works applying expert systems to cyber security; Ben Ten, senior security consultant at TrustedSec; John Strand, owner of Black Hills Information Security; Rob Fuller (Mubix), principal security engineer; and South Dakota Sen. Marion Michael “Mike” Rounds. Live streaming of Friday’s speakers can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXesy_TH6dJBgOyVlDIJoAA.

The Friday speakers will present on topics ranging from legislating cybersecurity to the intersection of security and usability. The event also features a CTF (Capture the Flag) event and the North Central Region National Collegiate Cyber Defense (CCDC) Competition. This regional competition will determine the team that will go on to the National Championship held April 22-24 in San Antonio, Texas. The North Central CCDC teams are from Dakota State University, Montana Tech of the University of Montana, University of South Dakota, Mitchell Technical Institute, University of Nebraska, Kearney, Western Iowa Tech Community College and Western Dakota Technical Institute.    

DakotaCon will also hold two day security trainings in East Hall on the DSU campus, and registration is required. Trainings include: Metasploit, OpenBTS Cellular Networks Workshop and Red vs. Blue Techniques with Hunt Teaming.

All speaker presentations on Friday are free and open to the public starting at 9:00 a.m. at the Dakota Prairie Playhouse. For more info, see dakotacon.org.

Sponsors for DakotaCon include:

Gold Sponsors - Raytheon, Walmart and Dakota State University

Silver Sponsors - First Premier Bank and Premier Bankcard, SDN Communications, and Black Hills Information Security

Bronze Sponsors – Sanford Health, Cisco, Solutionary, High Point Networks, Daktronics and Marco and Cobalt Strike