A webinar series to help small businesses secure and defend their business asset

This webinar series will inform small business owners of modern cyber security threats they must be aware of. The series will provide the necessary knowledge and skills to develop effective plans on cyber defense strategies to maintain business operations in terms of increased productivity, cost savings, and reduced cyber risk. Attendees will learn how the latest generation of cyber attackers are sophisticated and behave in unexpected ways at different scales. Through the introduction of various cyber tools, techniques, and technologies for cyber defense in the "Mizzou Cyber Range" testbed, attendees will become familiar with the best practices and relevant standards to create a resilient security position that aligns with small business operational goals. This series is provided at no-cost to support from the Missouri SBDC CARES funding.

The Importance of Cyber Defense Planning for Small Businesses:

·      Defending your company’s vital data and information.
·      Preventing theft or damage to your infrastructure, equipment, and systems.
·      Avoiding major disruptions to operations and the delivery of products.
·      Protecting your employee’s personal information.
·      Shielding your organization from negative publicity.
·      Planning IT budgets and policies with adequate cyber incident response

Expected Outcomes:
Through the webinar series, you will learn and understand basic and advanced cyber defense concepts in the context of real-world applications. You will also become an active learner on the principles related to cyber-attack risk management, security best practices as well as human/behavioral aspects impacting cybersecurity-related decisions in IT budgets and policymaking.

Instructors: 
The webinar series is organized and led by Dr. Prasad Calyam (https://engineering.missouri.edu/faculty/prasad-calyam), an associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and co-instructed by Cyberinfrastructure Engineer Dr. Songjie Wang of CERI Center. Guest lectures will be given by cybersecurity experts from Missouri businesses.

Series schedule:

Wednesday, April 28, 2021, 11:30 am - 1:00 pm
Understanding your organizations' security position - Register here
This course module focuses on introducing the basic concepts involving the current emerging trends in cyber-attacks, commonly seen attack scenarios, understanding how these attacks impact your small business.

·         Rise of cyber-attacks and hacker motivations
·         Types of modern cyber attacks
·         Understanding your cybersecurity strategy gap

Wednesday, May 5, 2021, 11:30 am - 1:00 pm
Deciding on your security design principles - Register here
This course module introduces concepts on how to understand the security requirements for your business and help you to find the key principles to secure your web, network, and business data assets.

·         Handling cybersecurity dilemmas
·         Formalizing technical/managerial security requirements
·         Customizing security design principles for your small business
·         Live demonstration exercise of an exemplar design

Wednesday, May 12, 2021, 11:30 am - 1:00 pm
Getting ready to face the adversary - Register here
This course module focuses on helping you to understand the motives of cyber attackers in terms of what they seek and how they plan intrusions and educates you on how to detect various cyber-attacks with relevant tools, technologies.

·         Knowing your intruders and their behavior
·         Get visibility of intrusion attempts through monitoring
·         Detection of cyber-attacks using a data-driven approach
·         Live demonstration exercise on a targeted attack detection

Wednesday, May 19, 2021, 11:30 am - 1:00 pm
Outsmart your adversary - Register here
This course module focuses on techniques used to defend from various types of modern cyber-attacks to help you to develop plans to protect your network, data, and computing resources, as well as mitigate insider attacks/dumb user mishaps by enforcing smart access control.

·         Defending your network assets
·         Protecting your data/computing assets from hackers
·         Assigning roles and access control for employees, contractors, etc.
·         Live demonstration exercise on a moving target defense

Wednesday, May 26, 2021, 11:30 am - 1:00 pm
Maintaining a resilient security position - Register here
This course module introduces strategies for continued assessment of cyber threats and helps you to understand the risks while securing your business assets in a sustainable way.

·         On-going risk assessment and management
·         Handling cloud migration and remote workers
·         Usable cybersecurity - limiting cybersecurity IT budget overspend
·         Case study exercise for risk assessment and management