Overview

This year’s inaugural Purple Hats Conference attracted more than 1,000 cybersecurity practitioners from around the world to collaborate, share ideas, and learn how to evolve from a reactive approach to proactive, threat-informed defense. Founded by AttackIQ and leveraging the free AttackIQ Academy platform for cybersecurity education and certification, Purple Hats provided security practitioners with free access to cybersecurity leaders and peers, technical content, and innovative techniques to help them improve their cybersecurity posture and build stronger, more collaborative teams.

The conference featured three main tracks:

1) Technical: This track covered strategies to defend organizations against breaches and attacks in the “new normal,” including how to break red and blue team silos by creating a purple team culture and the role of the MITRE ATT&CK framework in adopting a threat-informed defense. Sessions were led by Allan Alford, CISO & CTO of TrustMAPP; Gabe Lawrence, General Manager of Cybersecurity Protection at Toyota; and experts from MITRE Engenuity’s Center of Threat Informed Defense (CTID).

2) Financial Services: This track featured best practices for evolving from reactive to proactive programs, transformational strategies for bringing automation to the cybersecurity tech stack, using breach and attack simulation in operational resiliency plans, and making cybersecurity a board-level conversation. Sessions were led by Clayton Chandler, CISO & Global Head of Cyber Security at Credit Suisse, various leaders at CSAA Insurance Group, and AttackIQ cybersecurity experts.

3) Healthcare: This track explored how to unite risk and threat management and make data-driven, threat-informed decisions. Sessions were led by Ron Mehring, CISO of Texas Health Resources; Paul Haywood, CISO of Bupa; Ted Harrington, leader of ethical hackers and best-selling author; and Dr. Suzanne Schwartz, one of the FDA’s leading cybersecurity experts.

Purple Hats also offered eleven networking sessions that allowed attendees to hear from and meet industry infosecurity peers and expand their online network.