.Description
Join us on April 16th at 6:00PM for an in-depth presentation from Joanna Wiggum on cybersecurity threat intelligence focused on consequential breaches from the last year, the adversarial patterns behind them, and the growing role of human decision risk in modern compromise. The presentation will examine how threat actors profile organizations and trusted operators from the outside, leverage public and organizational context to build credibility, and use pressure, timing, and deception to shape decisions involving money, access, data, and legitimacy.
The talk will highlight recent cases, including the FBI’s warning on cybercriminal groups that used voice phishing to impersonate IT support, persuade employees to authorize malicious connected apps, and gain access through what appeared to be legitimate integrations. The presentation will conclude with a practical guide to reviewing personal and organizational exposure, along with recommendations attendees can use to implement preventative measures. Time will also be reserved for questions and discussion around practical next steps. Joanna will provide attendees with take-home checklists they can use to apply the lessons learned and review their own exposure after the presentation.
Joanna Wiggum is the founder of Countervail, a veteran-owned American company built to help organizations prevent breaches where exposure, trust, authority, and operational pressure create human decision risk. Her career spans both military operations and cybersecurity leadership. In the U.S. Air Force, she helped plan and deploy U.S. Central Command’s air-to-ground communications strategy in support of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. She later commissioned and built a reputation for planning and leading global strategic bomber missions, work grounded in adversary-informed mission planning, psychological messaging, and decision-making under pressure. Joanna went on to direct major cybersecurity incident response, build red-team programs, and modernize preventive security functions, including anti-fraud and abuse programs, across big tech and Fortune 500 environments. She holds a B.A. in International Security Studies and an M.A. in Human Relations from the University of Oklahoma.
She launched Countervail to address a gap she saw repeatedly inside mature security programs: technical controls often worked, but attackers still succeeded by exploiting trust, operational pressure, and cognitive biases. Countervail helps organizations understand how leaders and other trusted operators are profiled, where public and private exposure creates avoidable risk, and what practical measures can reduce that exposure. Through assessments and workshops, the company teaches leaders and teams to think more like a cyber adversary so they can recognize deceptive tactics and protect high-consequence decisions.
Agenda:
- 6:00 PM – 6:15 PM: Networking and Introduction
- 6:15 PM – 6:30 PM: Cyber Trivia
- 6:45 PM – 7:15 PM: Keynote Presentation: Adversarial Patterns and Human Decision Risk
- 7:15 PM – 7:30 PM: Q&A Session
- 7:30 PM – 8:00 PM: Closing Remarks and Announcements
Date Time: April 16th 2026 at 6:00 PM
Location: Mercer Island Community & Event Center – 8236 SE 24th St, Mercer Island, WA 98040
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