The 12th annual Security at University of Michigan IT (SUMIT) was held on Thursday, October 20. As the university’s flagship event for National Cyber Security Awareness Month, SUMIT_2016 helped raise community awareness of timely IT security and privacy issues. This year’s event featured panel discussions and presentations that included:
U-M Law professor Margo Schlanger (far right), is joined by Alexander Joel and David Medine for a discussion about the appropriate balance between privacy and security in our society in an age of terrorism. (Joel Iverson)
- Hacking & Securing the Internet of Things: A panel discussion that provided insight into attack vectors and emerging security standards of the Internet of Things.
- Security in Tree City: Leaders of some of Ann Arbor’s best tech companies shared their perspectives on the state of computer security, the information security industry in Ann Arbor, and the threats and challenges they strive to address through their products and services.
- Security and Privacy in an Age of Terrorism: As part of the Dissonance event series, a panel made up of current and former federal experts, moderated by a U-M law school faculty member, discussed the pressing question of how to strike the appropriate balance between security and privacy in a world where terror attacks are a daily threat.
- Hacking the Vote: Professor Dan Wallach, a national expert in the security of voting systems from Rice University, shared a case study of his ongoing project to design a more secure ballot casting system and the importance of doing so.
Rice University professor Dan Wallach, used humor at times to discuss the real need for a more secure voting system. (Joel Iverson)
Information about each presentation and a biography of each presenter is available at the SUMIT_2016 event page. Videos of all SUMIT_2016 presentations and panel discussions will be available soon. Presentations from previous SUMIT conferences are also available on the Safe Computing events page.
More than 550 people attended SUMIT_2016 either in person at Rackham Auditorium or virtually via the live stream throughout the day. These individuals represented more than 209 universities, corporations, small businesses, and nonprofits from around the country.
Social media played another key role in keeping the conversation about SUMIT_2016 going. During the conference there were 277 tweets with the hashtag #sumit16. Those tweets made 38,400 impressions leading to 168 engagements (retweets, replies, quotes, and likes). As a comparison, in an average month, @umichTECH tweets are usually seen 20-40 thousand times.
