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Branches and Breaches: Cybersecurity Strategies for Genealogists

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Date and Time

Thursday, November 19, 2026, 7:30 PM until 9:00 PM

Event Contact(s)

Nathan Shepherd

Category

Education Meeting

Registration Info

Registration is required

About this event


Branches and Breaches: Cybersecurity Strategies for Genealogists


Thursday, November 19, 2026, 7:30 PM until 9:00 PM Eastern Time (US & Canada) (UTC-05:00)

Description: This session looks into the intersection of genealogy and cybersecurity, offering practical and actionable strategies to secure and protect the precious research you work on every day. After attending this session, you will understand the one foundational idea that drives information security, and how it directly maps into the world of genealogy. You'll also learn several key best practices which can not only safeguard your genealogy work but your entire digital “footprint” as a whole.



Ben Smith Headshot

Bio: Ben Smith is an information security and risk management expert, as well as an avid family historian and genetic genealogist. He recently completed a decade-long tenure as Field Chief Technology Officer with RSA Security, the world's oldest cybersecurity brand.

 

Smith holds industry certifications in information security (CISSP [Emeritus]) and risk management (CRISC [Retired]); he is an acknowledged contributor to NIST SP 1800-1, -3, and -7; and he is a past Chair and current Board Advisor for the non-profit Cybersecurity Canon Project.

 

He is a patent holder, and previously served as a corporate representative to NIST's National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) and as an invited mentor supporting the MACH37 cybersecurity accelerator program. He is a Contributing Author of four of the “97 Things Every Information Security Professional Should Know” [O'Reilly, 2021] as well as the Technical Reviewer of “Mastering the Art of Sales Engineering” [Packt, 2024].



 




 





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Fairfax Genealogical Society

P.O. Box 2290

Merrifield, Virginia 22116-2290