Zero Trust in Practice: Secure Access and Policy Enforcement for Government

Agencies now support users, devices, applications and locations that sit well outside the old perimeter, and a firewall at the edge no longer covers it. This session walks through a practical path to Zero Trust: replacing VPN access with Zero Trust Network Access, extending consistent policy through a Hybrid Mesh Firewall, and tightening identity and device controls with Network Access Control. You will see how the three work together to give you visibility, least privilege access and segmentation across campus, branch, remote and cloud.

The Path to Compliance: A Cybersecurity Roadmap for ITS’s Enterprise Security Policy

The Mississippi ITS Enterprise Security Policy asks every agency for two things, a Cybersecurity Plan and a Letter of Compliance, and the deadlines are real. This session walks leadership through what the policy requires, the ten components ITS expects in every plan, a realistic three to five year maturity roadmap, what staying non-compliant actually risks, and a clear six step path to submission, including where a vCISO partner fits in.

The Autonomous Endpoint: Harnessing Agentic AI for Proactive Defense

Waiting for an alert is no longer a defense. This session looks at how agentic AI turns the endpoint into an active participant, with self directed agents that investigate anomalies, orchestrate remediation and neutralize threats in real time rather than adding to an analyst’s queue. You will see how that shift disrupts the attacker lifecycle and gives security teams their time back.

Doing More with Less: AI Native Networking for State and Local Government

Government IT teams cover agencies, courthouses and public safety with thin staff and budgets. This lab shows how Mist AI and Marvis turn network data into answers, catching problems before users call and pointing staff at the likely cause. It also covers the Juniper and Aruba coming together and what that means for the equipment you already own. Bring your laptop.

From Policy to Practice: Responsible AI Adoption in Mississippi

AI is moving out of experimentation and into production across the state’s public sector. Dr. Napier lays out where Mississippi actually stands, including the emerging state policy and governance picture, then gets practical: evaluating AI vendors and use cases, the data and security questions to ask, workforce readiness, and the first steps an agency can take. Includes the Mississippi specific training available through MAIN.

From Manual to Governed: A Human and Agentic Identity Security Lab

Most agencies run access requests, approvals and certifications by hand, across spreadsheets, email chains and tickets, with nothing tying them together. This two hour hands on workshop puts you in a live tenant to run that lifecycle properly: submit and approve access, run a certification campaign, and surface orphaned accounts and separation of duties conflicts. A fourth module extends the same model to AI agents and service accounts. Bring your laptop.