2026-04-26 –, Track 2
Small municipalities are ransomware's sweet spot: essential services, political pressure to restore operations, limited IT staff, and budgets that prioritize potholes over patches. While headlines focus on attacks against major cities, it's the towns under 50,000 residents (thousands of them) that attackers quietly exploit. This talk examines why small local governments are disproportionately targeted, what their environments actually look like (spoiler: it's bad), and what a single overworked IT person can realistically do to defend them. Drawing on real incidents and the operational realities of municipal IT, we'll cover practical defensive strategies that don't require enterprise budgets or dedicated SOCs.
Small municipalities are ransomware's sweet spot: essential services, political pressure to pay, and IT departments of one. While headlines focus on major cities, thousands of towns under 50,000 residents get hit quietly and constantly. This talk examines what small municipal IT actually looks like, walks through a real incident that shows why these environments fail, and offers a "pick three" defensive framework for resource-constrained defenders who can't do everything.
Alton Henley is a higher education leader and technologist with over 36 years of combined military and civilian service. He most recently served as the college-wide Dean of Business at Montgomery College, where he also previously led the Information Technology Institute as Senior Director for 7 years. Alton spent two decades in the IT industry — including roles as a senior systems developer at Amtrak and assistant IT director at the University of Maryland, Baltimore — before dedicating himself to education. He is the creator of CodeWork Academy, a free grant-funded programming bootcamp in Maryland, and expanded Montgomery College's Montgomery Can Code initiative by 200%. Alton has taught courses in web development, analytics, and cybersecurity, and his work centers on using experiential learning to equip students with practical, career-ready technology skills.