Global Telecom Solutions (GTS) hosted its second annual Partner Advisory Council (PAC),  November 30 to December 2, 2022, at the Rosen Shingle Creek Resort in Orlando, Florida.

Matt Kipp, David Lefever and Shane O'Donnell represented The Mako Group, a platinum event sponsor.

Members of The Mako Group, LLC's audit team met in person for the first time this week during The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) Indianapolis Chapter's "Risk Assessment Done Right" training event, November 15, 2022, at Ceruti's Catering in Fort Wayne, Indiana. 

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Left to right: Joe Gates, Slav Bondarenko, Meredith Yonker, Betty Lavoie, Michelle Arbini, Kari Weaver, Bethany Deeds, Shane O'Donnell and Stacey Strack. 

​Shane O'Donnell, Matt Kipp and Brandyn Fisher represented The Mako Group at Global Telecom Solutions (GTS)' 8th Annual Open House at the Detroit Athletic Club on July 28, 2022. Awarded Runner Up in two award categories, Service Provider of the Year and Rising Star, we were honored by this recognition and highly value our channel partnership.

The Mako Group was in attendance for the annual Cybertech Midwest tour in Indianapolis which ran from July24-25. Our employees who attended were on site with current clients and industry peers to gather a state of the union in global Cybersecurity. Cybertech is the cyber industry's foremost B2B networking platform conducting industry related events all around the globe. This two day event draws experts from large global companies as well as government entities and serves as the go-to place to learn all about the latest technological innovations, threats, and solutions to combating threats within the global cyber area.

The Mako Group recently attended the annual GTS Open House in historic Corktown in downtown Detroit. The open house was an excellent forum on the status of telecom and cybersecurity and a great deal of essential peer information sharing took place. GTS events are always run in a top notch fashion, and the 2019 open house held true to form. 

On July 11th Jeffery Delozier, Security & Risk Advisor, attended an ISSA chapter meeting for the Central Indiana Chapter. The topics discussed at the meeting included Encrypted Things – Network Detection and Response in an Encrypted World and Securing Cloud and DevOps Systems. The presenters included TJ Biehle from Gigamon and David Sims from Anthem.

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In his presentation about Encryption TJ Biehle explained that these days, nearly everything is encrypted. To date, around 80-90% of network traffic is encrypted and it is projected that in 2020 that number will be around 99.5%. The problem is that attackers know how to encrypt too. He discussed that decryption and metadata-based analysis are two ways to address this. Both have their pros and cons, but it is important to consider both approaches. He discussed new developments in SSL/TLS and went through small scenarios that demonstrated how to hunt for unwanted/malicious traffic.

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For his discussion on Cloud Security David Sims began with the history and overview of cloud computing and led into the importance and difficulty of securing the cloud. He took the group through the industry drivers for cloud computing; AWS, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook. He discussed the process of implementing cloud environments in current work environments and some of the challenges that come along with that. He discussed the concept of a “Hybrid” cloud which means that the environment includes a mix of on-prem and third-party cloud services that work with each other. A pro to this type of cloud environment is scalability, meaning that businesses can adjust the resources as they change over time. The negative to this is that it is very expensive. Cloud security was certainly a hot topic for many people.

The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) hosted its 2019 international conference, themed “A Vibe All Its Own,” at the Anaheim Convention Center in Southern California from July 7th to July 10th. This annual conference is the IIA’s premier training and networking event for internal audit professionals worldwide. Over 2,000 audit industry practitioners and providers representing over 100 countries could choose from more than 70 sessions in nine educational streams, including Emerging Issues, Technology, and Global Compliance & Risk.

Although Audit and Risk Manager, Meredith Yonker had previously attended an IIA international conference, this was the first time she participated as an official volunteer. Once selected to volunteer for the first half of the conference, Meredith received a free registration pass to attend the rest. Thus, Meredith’s conference experience kicked off with a required training on Sunday, followed by fun trip to Disneyland, however. Then she worked in the Volunteer Office on Monday and Tuesday by helping out in all areas and assisting the other volunteers with any questions or needs. Overall, it was a wonderful opportunity and honor to serve as a volunteer!

Meredith’s time as a conference attendee entailed four general sessions and two concurrent sessions. Without a doubt, her favorite session was the only one that had a grand piano on the main stage! A renowned classical pianist delivered a keynote presentation on disruptive diversity that combined music, performance, and storytelling. Another outstanding general session Meredith had the privilege to witness was a panel discussion involving three dynamic audit leaders who took different paths to success. Finally, Meredith really enjoyed the final session delivered by a “futurist” who advised on how to thrive in the age of machine intelligence (and who looked eerily similar to Keanu Reeves).

Amazon Web Services (AWS) hosted its first conference dedicated to cloud security, AWS re:Inforce, at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center in Boston, MA on June 25th and 26th. Over the course of the two-day conference, content was delivered in multiple formats via four tracks designed to meet the needs of security and compliance professionals:

1. The Foundation - filling any knowledge gaps, not just about “the basics” though

2. Governance, Risk, & Compliance - wrangling your stuff, meeting imposed requirements

3. Security Deep Dive - raising your internal bar, improving security automation

4. Security Pioneers - challenging yourself, inventing security solutions

Meredith Yonker attended this inaugural event with several employees from one of The Mako Group’s clients that recently migrated to the cloud. The conference kicked off the first day with a keynote led by AWS’ Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). The remainder of Meredith’s first day consisted of four breakout sessions, including a panel discussion on harnessing diversity in the information security workforce, and a hands-on workshop that introduced an online cloud controls training program.

Meredith’s second day entailed three more breakout sessions and another hands-on workshop that provided an opportunity to start coding for security utilizing various tools. There was a fair amount of sales pitches throughout, but Meredith appreciated that numerous speakers did not work for AWS and simply had deep experience with its services. In fact, the presentation that Meredith liked the best offered practical security advice in a very entertaining way, as the message came from a “cloud economist” who specializes in helping companies fix their AWS bills.

Dylan Foos, Network Penetration Tester attended the 614Con Hackers Teaching Hackers 2-Day conference. It was his first time attending this event which was held in Columbus, Ohio and in addition to attending he was asked to run a password cracking village with a friend of his. Dylan breaks down the entire conference in this brief recap which can be found here.

Parkview Health and InfraGard Indiana hosted an all-day HEALTHCARE CYBERSECURITY SUMMIT at the Parkview Mirror Center located in Fort Wayne, IN.
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Bethany Deeds, Brooke Gardner, Gary Bandelier, Peter Clarke, and Shane O’Donnell, five of The Mako Group’s team members, attended the event along with a large contingent of peers from other organizations.
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Richard Bird, Chief Customer Information Officer for Ping Identity, and Mark Swearingen, Attorney - Hall Render, were the keynote speakers and shared their different perspectives and experiences with Cybersecurity as a computer scientist and attorney, respectively. Rich Banta, Co-Owner, Lifeline Data Centers, LLC shared his experiences in how the NIST Cybersecurity Framework tremendously helped his business. He mentioned how Peter Clarke from The Mako Group partnered with his business to help them to know
what controls and security would best fit their organization based upon the framework.

The Institute of Internal Auditors’ Fort Wayne Chapter hosted two four-hour training sessions “The New Psychology of Professional Skepticism” and “When the Facts Aren’t Enough: The Art of Communicating Complex Information” on Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum. 

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Bethany Deeds, Brooke Gardner, and Gary Bandelier, three of The Mako Group’s team members, attended the event with employees from several Fort Wayne area organizations.

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Toby Groves, Social Cognitive Scientist, Speaker, and Writer was the presenter who shared a radically different and more effective method of skeptical judgment, including a deep dive into the thinking perspectives and cognitive skills that help experts gain clarity in their messaging, gaining a more thorough understanding of their content, and how others will perceive their message. 

Mr. Groves led attendees through several tests that validated Mr. Groves theories. During an additional demonstration, attendees viewed the movement of Gary’s brain waves throughout the different sections of his brain depending upon scenarios he had to face. The photo to the right provides an image of what we were able to see.

On April 11th and 12th The North Oakland Chapter of Information Systems Security Association (ISSA) and Baker College hosted DCON 2019, a meeting of Information Security professionals and others within the industry who are interested in hearing industry experts speak on topics related to information security. The conference also featured a Lock Pick Village, Capture-The-Flag and an intro to penetration testing class. 

Matt Kipp, Director of Risk attended the DCON event from The Mako Group. The speakers spoke on several topical and relevant industry issues and were very informative. This gets better each year and we are looking forward to this event next year.

On Wednesday, April 10th, David Lefever attended the Buy Indiana Expo, an event that aligns Hoosier companies to unique opportunities to expand their business through contracts with government centers. The event is sponsored by the Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane (NSWC Crane) and also includes breakout sessions and workshops that educate vendors on how to conduct business with the Federal Government. As a trusted vendor across the state The Mako Group was invited to attend this great event by NSWC Crane. 

The Institute of Internal Auditors’ Indianapolis Chapter hosted a two-hour training “Privacy and Data Protection” on Monday, March 25, 2019 at the Lilly Corporate Center. 

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Meredith Yonker and Bethany Deeds, two of The Mako Group’s team members, attended the event with employees from several Indianapolis area organizations.

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Audrey Mills, Sr. Director Ethics and Compliance and Chief Privacy Offer for Eli Lilly & Company and Pam Hrubey, Managing Director in Crowe’s Risk practice, were the presenters who shared a high-level overview of the current state of privacy and data protection regulations. They then lead the group through case studies involving common privacy and data protection matters and ended the session with key opportunities they saw for Internal Auditors to provide support for their organizations.

The Institute of Internal Auditors’ Fort Wayne Chapter hosted a one-hour training “Change Management” on Tuesday, March 12, 2019. The event was held at the Parkview Health Mirro Center.

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Bethany Deeds and Brooke Gardner, two of The Mako Group’s team members, attended the event. Also in attendance, were employees from several Fort Wayne area organizations, such as Parkview Health, City of Fort Wayne, Medical Informatics Protective, Franklin Electric and Lincoln Financial Group.

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Donna Van Vlerah, SVP Support Division, Parkview was our speaker who described how she has handled changes in the organizations she has worked with currently and in the past. She described how to develop a path and plan for change, and especially how to communicate change to different people throughout the organization.

The Institute of Internal Auditors’ Indianapolis Chapter hosted a two-hour training “Ethics in the Workplace” on Tuesday, March 12, 2019. The event was held at the Lilly Corporate Center, which is a beautiful location and building.

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Two of The Mako Group’s team members attended the event, Meredith Yonker and Brooke Gardner. There were attendees from several Indianapolis organizations, including Internal Audit members from Anthem and CNO. The training discussed many ethical dilemmas that occurred at several organizations. The group was encouraged to discuss specific ethical decisions among their tables, which spurred a lot of interesting conversations.

The Northeast Indiana Information Systems Security Association (NEIN-ISSA) is a chapter of the International ISSA and hosts regular networking opportunities and education events. The Mako Group’s Security and Controls Manager, Brooke Gardner, attended their local event on Feb. 28, 2019, “PHP Office and Data Center Move”. The speaker was the Director of IT Infrastructure at PHP and he described the trials and tribulations involved in moving locations from IT’s perspective.

Through an entertaining presentation, the group learned what was involved with moving nearly 200 users, a data center, and everything that goes with each. Obviously, not everything goes smoothly with a project of this magnitude, but all of that can be chalked up to lessons learned for the next big move.