Tara Lemieux

Tara Lemieux

CMMC Queen, Redspin

Tara Lemieux is an internationally recognized cybersecurity expert, speaker and educator. With more than 35 years of experience in the National Defense and Information Security , Tara has established herself as a leading authority on the ever-evolving cyber threat landscape. Throughout her career, she has provided specialized knowledge and expertise in areas such as cryptography, authentication, cloud security and malware defense. Her understanding of these topics has allowed her to deliver security training sessions to global audiences of both technical and non-technical professionals. Tara is well-known for developing sophisticated methods to assess risk across a variety of digital assets. She routinely performs vulnerability scans on high-profile federal and commercial information systems, designs incident response plans and participates in computer crime investigations. Her work in this space earned her recognition by organizations worldwide. She is a founding member of the CMMC working groups, and a contributing author to the CMMC Assessment Process.

All Sessions by Tara Lemieux

Converge Security Conference 2024 October 25, 2024
4:00 pm - 4:50 pm

The New Cyber Frontlines: Are Recent Attacks on U.S. Infrastructure a Prelude to a Larger Cyberwar?

Platinum 4

Our world is rapidly changing and our reliance on technology to facilitate literally every aspect of our lives, certainly accelerating its complexity. Not surprisingly, our home and business networks have become riddled with cyber threats. Even the smallest and the most innocuous of oversights can lead to irreparable consequences - as evidenced by relentless, targeting of our defense supply chain.

Recently, these cyber-attacks have transcended beyond mere digital skirmishes to become a cornerstone of a much larger geopolitical strategy. Hackers are now forming loose coalitions between their groups to further political strategy - sharing expertise, intelligence, resources, and more to further these interests. As these attacks grow more complex and politically charged, we need to explore and understand the implications to our national security and more specifically, how compliance standards such as the CMMC can support our nation in this challenging battlefield.

Our session will explore recent attacks on our Defense Supply Chain and U.S. Government Agencies, focusing on how attackers gained access to U.S. information systems and exploited vulnerabilities. From Solar Winds and beyond, we'll unravel the strategies employed by hackers, revealing an alarming trend towards more aggressive, state-sponsored cyber warfare. We will also explore how digital strikes are carefully orchestrated to achieve specific political objectives, often leaving a trail of chaos in their wake.

As we confront the challenges of this new era, we must question the adequacy of existing countermeasures - including, the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) and supporting legislation. Is compliance alone enough to stave off these rapidly advancing threats?