2026 Rocky Mountain Cybersecurity Symposium

An exploration of how cybercriminals weaponize both online and offline services to target Wyoming citizens and organizations.

Drawing from prevention work with youth and communities across Wyoming, this session explores how offenders exploit digital environments to manipulate, coerce, and financially exploit victims. This session will help cybersecurity professionals better understand the human element of cybercrime and how awareness, prevention, and early intervention can reduce harm. 

Each year, the AARP Fraud Watch Network Helpline takes 100,000 calls from across the country reporting scams, fraud and financial exploitation. Learn about the top scams trends for 2026 and what technologies scammers are using to target their victims.

For the last three years, identity theft has been the most common victim report to the AARP Fraud Watch Network Helpline. Learn practical ways to protect your identity by safeguarding your personal and financial information.

Analyzing famous espionage cases (Ames, Hanssen) through the “Fraud Triangle” to help organizations spot insider threats.

Today’s youth are growing up in a world that encourages a deep involvement with technology. Yet these same children are oftentimes unsupervised and unprepared to play safely on the digital playground—where they can very easily make bad and potentially dangerous decisions. The adults in young people’s lives have a responsibility to guide young people, who are spending a large part of their lives immersed in the digital realm, with a comprehensive cyber safety and cyber ethics education. At this session, just for parents, Ben Halpert gives parents the tools to educate their children with the “modern street smarts” that are required for digital safety—showing parents how to engage with their children on what they are experiencing and how to empower their children to be safe by making appropriate decisions in the online world. At home, parents can further emphasize the need for privacy and the principles of Cyber Ethics, including the need to thoughtfully maintain a positive online persona and apply appropriateness and empathy to virtual decision-making.