WATERVILLE — Thomas College’s Harold Alfond Institute for Business Innovation and WEX, a financial technology service provider headquartered in Maine, are collaborating to bring cybersecurity experts from Thomas College, state and federal government and other leading technology companies for a workshop Cybersecurity Safety at Home, Work and Play.

The free event will take place from 1 to 5 p.m. Thursday, March 12, at Thomas College, 180 West River Road.

According to a news release from Thomas College, the event is for individuals, businesses, technology professionals and students to learn more about the increasing threat to personal and professional data. Cybersecurity experts can help attendees identify and understand the fast-changing landscape of cyber and the roles everyone must place in monitoring overall safety.

One of the experts speaking is WEX Chief Information Security Officer Michael Leonhirth.

“The Cybersecurity threat landscape is rapidly evolving with threat actors becoming more sophisticated, motivations becoming more diverse, and attack vectors becoming more distributed and varied,” said Leonhirth, according to the release. “This presentation will explore some of the countermeasures and controls available to help combat these risks — and protect the confidentiality, availability, and integrity of critical information assets.”

Leonhirth is an information security and risk management executive with more than 25 years of information security, risk management, IT auditing, project management, and business operations experience. He has extensive experience in the financial services industry including security strategies to mitigate internal and external threats, in-sourcing/out-sourcing, managed services, Cloud migration, Board and executive management presentations, and execution of constantly evolving security capabilities. He also is responsible for addressing the critical risks inherent with the use of technology that supports business operations and the corporate mission, according to the release.

“Your pre-teen, yourself, and your large corporation are not safe and there are many traps placed making it too easy for you to make an innocent mistake. Machines seeking to do harm and harvest your money do not avoid New England, Maine or you,” said Thomas College professor and nationally recognized cybersecurity expert Frank Appunn, according to the release. “This conference of down-to-earth experts will address things you want to protect at home, play, and at work. Leading presenters from young to old will provide short and specific reviews that you can use to reduce risks and losses. Examples include ransomware, incidents, crises, TikTok, intellectual property theft, fraud, bad email, and website scams that can do you harm. We have no place to hide, we need to defend ourselves.”

More information and to register, visit thomas.edu or call 859-1159.