Cybersecurity Month 2026

Every October, our college campuses take a month to focus on something that matters every day of the year staying safe online. This year, the CCC Security Center is expanding on that mission with a series of events open to every student, faculty, and staff member across the California Community Colleges.

We're going beyond the usual compliance training checklist and covering topics that matter to you! This year's lineup covers topics around identity theft, online extortion, and the real-world state of cybersecurity, alongside a chance to hear directly from people who've built careers in this field and the paths that got them here.

Please join us for a series of webinars tailored to our staff, faculty, and students. These aren't technical calls with speakers using jargon and complex language, we have topics that matter, presented by people who are passionate about their trade. We look forward to seeing you.

Cybersecurity Month Kick-Off with the DIANA Initiative

 October 7 at 11 AM PT           Session Recording

Kick off Cybersecurity Month with a panel conversation featuring professionals at various stages of their career in the field. Panelists will share how they got into cybersecurity, what challenges they faced along the way, and what kept them going. Whether you're interested in pursuing cybersecurity, just starting out, or years into your career, this session is about the people behind the work, not just the technology. This session is open to all users (students, faculty, and staff) across the California Community Colleges.

Speakers

Heather Vescent is a futurist, researcher, and founder of The Purple Tornado, a futures research and media studio exploring how emerging technologies transform society, identity, and human relationships. For over a decade, she’s helped clients like Disney, SWIFT, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security make sense of complex futures, from digital identity and cybersecurity to money, intimacy, and the Internet of Things. Her research has been featured in The New York Times, CNN, American Banker, CNBC, Fox, and The Atlantic. Through The Purple Tornado, she’s produced ten short films that visualize the future in the present tense, including Fly Me to the Moon, a speculative scenario about the future of money, nominated for a Most Important Futures Award. 

networks on behalf of clients. His experience spans higher education, healthcare, and the private sector. He advises on everything from high-level program development to the practical implementation of Z

ero Trust and cybersecurity controls. Before joining Vantage, Hunter served as Director of Education Strategy and Education Field CTO at Armis. He engaged higher education customers through large, complex i

mplementations and initiatives. He also served as Field Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for Higher Education at Palo Alto Networks, where he worked closely with universities and research institutions across the country to design security strategies aligned to their missions. As Assistant Vice President and Chief Information Security and Policy Officer at Tulane University, he built a robust information security program that managed processes, products, and support across the university and police department. His background also includes leadership and engineering roles with Duo Security, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana, and Louisiana State University. An active contributor to the higher education security community, Hunter has presented at EDUCAUSE, Internet2, and regional security forums, and has been recognized for his innovative partnerships between IT, public safety, and emergency management. He holds a Master of Business Administration from Tulane University and a Bachelor of Science from Louisiana State University, and he is also a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP).

                   

Jon Young has more than 30 years of experience leading change in IT/infosec teams, currently leading higher-ed strategy for Extreme Networks. Jon began his IT career as a student employee while studying nuclear engineering at the University of Florida. Leveraging the benefits of different thinking from Jon’s neurodiversity, he has been the “chief troublemaker” leading changes at universities,start-ups and corporations.                                                                                  

 

 

 

 

 

Cybersecurity Month All User Training with CrowdStrike

 October 13 at 10AM PT           Register Here

Dennen Monks from CrowdStrike joins us to talk about the state of cybersecurity today, from nation-state threat actors to the groups driving the attacks we're all watching in the news. AI is part of the conversation, but it's just one piece of a much bigger picture. Dennen has spent 20 years in cybersecurity across network, data, cloud, and application security, and now serves as a Field CTO Strategist at CrowdStrike, covering the western half of North America, giving him a front-row view of how these threats are actually playing out across organizations today. This session keeps things approachable, no deep technical background needed, just a clear look at what's happening on the world stage and what it actually means for you. This session is open to all users (students, faculty, and staff) across the California Community Colleges.

Speaker Biography

Dennen has worked in the Cybersecurity field for 20 years covering technologies across network, data, cloud, and applications. After 10 years in professional services, he spent 5 years at Skyhigh Networks managing Sales Engineering for the West before moving into a Sr. Cloud Security Architect role. More recently, he was the 13th employee and lead Solution Architecture at Bionic, one of CrowdStrike’s most recent acquisitions. He now covers the western half of North America as a Field CTO Strategist at Crowdstrike.

Cybersecurity Month: Fighting Identity Fraud Crime with KIDS

 October 22 at 11AM PT            Register Here

Identity fraud can happen to anyone, and it often starts in ways people don't expect. We're joined by Elaine Wooton, a technical expert in identity management and security documents. After a 30-year career with the US government, including DOJ and DHS, Elaine now provides forensic document examination and adversarial analysis through her company, IDxQD, and serves as President of Keeping Identities Safe (KIDS). She'll break down how identity fraud actually happens, who's most at risk, and what you can do to protect yourself and your family, along with what steps to take if you or someone you know becomes a victim. This session is open to all users (students, faculty, and staff) across the California Community Colleges.

Speaker Biography

Elaine Wooton is a technical expert in the area of identity management and security documents. After a 30-year stint with a US government forensic lab (Dept of Justice and Dept of Homeland Security), she is providing consulting and education services via the Keeping Identities Safe non-profit and her own "crime lab" (IDxQD). Her primary focus is on education - providing information to the public about the need for better identification documents & how to avoid identity theft, as well as briefing industry, government & elected officials about document-related fraud trends. Elaine’s forensic focus areas include design strategies for security documents, forensic document examination, and the use of forensic tools to assess digitally created and reproduced documents. 

Cybersecurity Month: Fighting Sextortion with Operation Shamrock

 October 28 at 11AM PT           Register Here  

For this difficult but important topic, we're joined by Erin West. Erin is the founder of Operation Shamrock, a prosecutor of 26 years who now works directly on the front lines exposing and disrupting online blackmail and romance-based financial scams around the world. Erin doesn't just study these crimes from a distance, she goes into the field, builds decoy profiles, traces scammers across borders, and has confronted perpetrators face to face. Much of her work centers on a hard truth: these scams are increasingly targeting teens and young adults, with devastating consequences. Erin will help attendees recognize these kinds of online extortion and blackmail attempts, understand what to do if it happens to you or someone you know, and leave equipped to share this information with others who need it. This session is open to all users (students, faculty, and staff) across the California Community Colleges.

Speaker Biography

Erin West is the Founder and President of Operation Shamrock, a global nonprofit dedicated to disrupting transnational scam networks through collaboration between law enforcement, industry, and the public. A retired prosecutor with 26 years of service in Santa Clara County, California, she is internationally recognized for her expertise in cryptocurrency investigations and organized cybercrime. Erin has become a leading voice in the fight against pig butchering scams and other forms of digital fraud. She also hosts the Stolen podcast, highlighting the human impact of online crime and inspiring audiences worldwide to take action against the global scam economy.