Announcements
Carol Crimi announced that the 100th Anniversary Celebration schedule for October 23 is moving ahead. The committee asks if anyone has random Rotary pictures, to please forward to Ben Wolford who has graciously volunteered to collect for the program. His email is: ben@theportager.com
Amanda Senn reminded everyone of the first Rotary Happy Hour coming up at the Kent State Hotel.
Larry Lohman, soon to be District Governor, announced two events:
Kathy Myers announced that this will be only the third time in our club’s history that we will have a District Governor. She thanked Larry for his service and encouraged everyone to attend. Bill Childers echoed Kathy’s remarks and congratulated Larry.
New Member Induction
President Randy asked Rotarian Asad Khan to introduce the new inductee to our club, Bill Myers. As his sponsor, Asad included the following in his remarks:
Bill Myers grew up in Stow and was hired by the Kent Fire Department September 11, 1989. He was promoted to Lieutenant in 1999 and has served as a Captain for the past 6 years. With the retirement of the current Fire Chief John Tosko on July 30, Bill will have the opportunity to assume those responsibilities. He is married to his wife Mary of 34 years and they have 3 children and 3 grandchildren with 2 more on the way. Besides spending time with his family, he enjoys exercising and living a meaningful life. As a good friend of Bill, Asad included some personal remarks.
President Randy then inducted Bill Myers into the club and welcomed him to The Rotary Club of Kent. Bill thanked everyone and indicated he is looking forward to being part of Kent Rotary!
100th Anniversary Moment
Jim Myers, as usual, had a unique story about our Club, noting that in 1944 our club led a joint venture with other organizations in our community to contact soldiers who would be returning in an effort help in occupational training. Fascinating story! Please read the full account.
Program
David Myers introduced Sandra Wheatley, an executive with Fortinet. The company is one of the top three in the country that works to thwart cyber criminals. Based on current events, she made it clear it was a very large enterprise and getting larger. Some of the major points she made about this complex topic included the following:
-Most digital hackers are not “attackers” or cyber criminals.
-Cyber criminals are motivated by money. There is profit to be made by utilizing ransomware
and phishing attacks on data bases.
-Cyber criminal toolkits are readily available to anyone on the internet.
-Cyber Criminals make their money three different ways:
- Ransomware attacks where they take control of a whole business and extort money to release that control back to the company. An example was the recent Colonial Pipeline incident. She noted that were 60,000 Ransomware attacks this past year.
- Phishing attacks, usually through an email attachment, targeting specific information in databases. She also noted that with all of our connectiveness in our homes, hackers can infect any of your devices, then you use the device to access company email or data files, infecting the company’s operations.
- ATM attacks where they coordinate large volumes of cash being dispensed throughout a geographical location. In addition, they can garner individuals' credit card numbers, addresses, etc. Allowing access to gain more dollars.
-There are strategies than can be used to thwart these attacks. These include:
1) Providing employees with the most up-to-date training to spot attacks.
2) Zero Trust Access replacing VPN.
3) Backing up data offline and off-network for rapid recovery if attacked.
4) Encrypt all data in your network.
5) Practice response strategies to insure everyone is prepared to handle the
responsibility in case of an attack.
6) Get outside services to help cybersecurity within your business.
She ended the formal presentation outlining the biggest challenge to not only her company, but throughout the industry. There is a shortage of 3 1/2 million trained specialists that are needed to stand against cyber criminals. She encouraged everyone to promote the profession to young people, noting her company has helped 1000 people to find jobs in the industry the past year. She ended her presentation by answering a few questions.
Responder
Asad Khan served as the responder, thanking Sandra for an incredible presentation and indicated the information presented was “jaw dropping,” and hard to believe it true. He again thanked her for spending her valuable time with us.
This week we heard from technology expert Sandra Wheatley Smerdon, who also is president elect Kathy’s sister-in-law. Her talk opened our eyes to the sophistication of internet “hackers” and steps we can take to protect our online devices, which now include not only our computers but phones, televisions, security systems, “alexa-like” devices and entertainment devices. Next week we hear from Bill Benoit, President of UH Portage Medical Center.
