This yeaR's Agenda

The CyberMarketingCon
2026 Agenda

Please note that session times and dates may change.

High Level Schedule: When should I arrive?
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To experience the whole conference, plan to arrive in the late morning on Sunday, November 15 and leave late afternoon on Wednesday, November 18 (or stay over to Thursday if you would like or are attending our CEO-Founder-Investor Dinner!)

Sunday - 11/15

Sunday will be a day of workshops and our opening night reception! Plan to arrive around in the late morning or early afternoon if you don't want to miss our 3 hands-on workshops, which start at 1pm CT. Opening night reception starts around 7pm CT.


Monday - 11/16

We kickoff with a keynote at 8:45am CT. Sessions, workshops, and networking throughout the day, including our GovCon Summit. We end the day with a group outing!


Tuesday - 11/17

Today we have sessions, workshops, and networking, plus our CyberCMO Summit; the day kicks off at 9am CT. Tonight we will have multiple activities and dinners.


Wednesday - 11/18

Our final keynote will kick off at 9am CT. Today we will have a three-quarters day of sessions, workshops, and our closing remarks end at 3:30pm CT. Founders, CEOs, and Investors may attend our CyberCEO Dinner at 5:30pm CT.

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8:00am
9:00pm
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Note on event times

Event times are subject to change and may not reflect the most up-to-date schedule. Please refer to the conference event app VirtualPro for the latest and most accurate times.

Sunday

Registration Desk Open!

Stop by the Registration Desk on the 2nd Floor Foyer and pick up your badge, swag bag, official conference notebook, and official conference t-shirt!

Explore the Expo Hall, the Fun Station, and join one of the workshops that we have set up on Sunday!

12:00 pm
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12:45 pm
CT
Expo Hall (Moontower Hall)
Workshop

Claude Beginner Workshop

Curious about Claude but not quite sure what to do beyond opening a chat and asking it questions? This hands-on beginner workshop is for you.

Designed specifically for cybersecurity marketers at CyberMarketingCon, this session will help you get comfortable using Claude for real marketing work — without requiring any technical or AI expertise.

We’ll cover the basics of how to work with Claude effectively, how to give it the context and direction it needs, and how to start using it across everyday workflows like research, campaign planning, content development, messaging, analysis, and more.

You’ll work through practical examples alongside other cybersecurity marketers and leave with ideas you can put to work immediately.

Bring your laptop and your corporate or personal Claude account. No AI expertise required!

1:00 pm
-
2:00 pm
CT
Expo Hall (Moontower Hall)
Workshop

Claude Intermediate Workshop

Ready to move beyond one-off chats and start building repeatable AI workflows?

This hands-on workshop is designed for cybersecurity marketers at CyberMarketingCon who already use Claude and want to take the next step: turning the work you do repeatedly into reusable systems.

We’ll focus heavily on Claude Skills—what they are, when to use them, and how to build them around real cybersecurity marketing workflows. We’ll also explore more advanced ways to structure Claude around your work, connect context and resources, and create repeatable processes that can help you and your team work faster and more consistently.

Rather than spending the session perfecting individual prompts, we’ll think bigger: How do you teach Claude how you work once, then reuse that knowledge again and again?

Bring your laptop, your personal or corporate Claude account, and come ready to build!

2:10 pm
-
3:00 pm
CT
Expo Hall (Moontower Hall)
Workshop

Points for Creativity: A Roller Derby Workshop for Cybersecurity Marketers

Cybersecurity marketing is defined by constraint: dense jargon, complex concepts, and audiences who demand precision. The challenge isn’t a lack of creativity; it’s finding space to play, experiment, and make ideas feel truly memorable inside those constraints. This workshop is designed as a creative reset for marketers whose brains have been on “perform under pressure” for a little too long… or those who know they are over-relying on AI for tasks that used to feel fun.

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Using the bold, irreverent naming culture of roller derby as our playground—think Penelope Bruise, Hermione Danger, Momentum Mori—we’ll explore what happens when you step away from AI and lean back pure sporting instinct. We’ll treat derby naming as a proxy for branding; names must instantly signal identity, tell a mini-story, and provoke a reaction, just like the best campaigns.

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The workshop starts with a short individual warm-up to get people out of polished marketing mode and into free thinking. Attendees will quickly jot down the words, frustrations, and ideas that feel most “stuck” or overused in their day-to-day work—terms they’re tired of, value props that feel flat, or product areas that feel impossible to make exciting. This becomes our raw material.

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From there, we’ll move into guided prompts such as:* “If this product or problem were a derby skater, what kind of troublemaker would they be?”* “If you could lean into FUD as a joke, what would you really call this thing?”Participants will then work in small teams, remixing their raw material into surprising combinations: pairing technical jargon with unexpected metaphors, fusing emotional states with security concepts, and bending industry clichés until they become something stranger and more interesting. The focus is less on “getting it right” and more on seeing how far they can stretch a concept without compromising accuracy. Teams will, for example: - Take a word from someone else’s list and combine it with their own to create a new character or brand.- Build a “family” of three related derby names that could all be features of the same product.
Additional playful constraints will push their creativity further: limiting word counts, forcing a quick pivot from serious to absurd, or asking teams to defend a ridiculous name as if it were going into a boardroom deck. Each round builds on the last, moving from silly and safe to sharper and more deliberate.

As the workshop progresses, teams will converge on a brand concept and tagline born from this chaos—something that still nods to the original cybersecurity idea but now feels alive, specific, and ideally, fun to scream out loud.

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Throughout, we’ll surface the meta-lessons: how constraints can unlock creativity instead of shutting it down, and how embracing a bit of discomfort or a “bad idea” often leads to better ones.

Attendees won’t leave with a rigid framework or a perfect campaign. They’ll leave with at least one absurd-but-delightful concept, a renewed sense of creative confidence, and a reminder that even in a jargon-heavy, high-stakes industry, there’s room to play for points.

3:15 pm
-
4:15 pm
CT
Expo Hall (Moontower Hall)
Workshop

Workshop: Business Networking Pickup Lines

There will be NO NAPPING during this workshop, where everyone will stand up, talk, move around, and learn how to be a professional business “flirt.” We challenge both extroverts and introverts to come to this session and learn how to make in-person cold connections, find *the* person in the room you need to talk to, and qualify someone for a potential business relationship. Check out this video from our workshop at Cyber Marketing Con 2023. If you attended the 2023 workshop, come back again! This brand new workshop is loaded with new exercises.

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4:30 pm
-
5:30 pm
CT
Expo Hall (Moontower Hall)

Opening Night Welcome Reception

CyberMarketingCon 2026 Welcome Reception: Choose Your Own Character

Every adventure starts with a character. Who will you be?

We’re kicking off CyberMarketingCon 2026 and our theme, Create Your Own Adventure, by inviting you to dress as your favorite character—from literally anything. Anything!

Here's some ideas: Indiana Jones, a medieval knight, an enterprising elf, Taylor Swift, the CISO at the last company that you sold into, Steve Jobs, Skyrim guards, a boxer, or someone entirely of your own creation.

Go all out or come as yourself (if you’re your own favorite character, that's totally fine)!

Join us to meet fellow adventurers, reconnect with friends, and get the CyberMarketingCon conference started!

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7:00 pm
-
9:30 pm
CT
Moontower Hall - Expo

Monday

Single Speaker

The State of Federal Cybersecurity Purchasing: What GTM Teams Need to Know

For cybersecurity companies selling into the federal government, understanding how agencies buy is essential to deciding where to focus your go-to-market efforts.

Hillary Coover will explore the state of federal cybersecurity purchasing, including agency priorities, budget pressures, and the procurement realities shaping buying decisions. The session will examine what these dynamics mean for cybersecurity vendors and how marketing and sales teams can better align their messaging, outreach, and planning with federal buyers’ needs.

You’ll leave with a clearer understanding of the federal buying environment, the questions to ask when evaluating opportunities, and how to set realistic expectations for pursuing business in this market.

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10:45 am
-
11:15 am
CT
Waterloo 4 Summit Room
Single Speaker

From Scrappy to Serious: Maturing Your Startup Brand Without Losing Your Edge

You've got product-market fit, a growing pipeline, and a sales team that needs air cover yesterday. But your brand still looks like it was built on a weekend and a free Figma trial. So how do you evolve — without blowing up what made you credible in the first place?

This candid fireside conversation between a VP of Marketing who's navigated this exact journey inside a high-growth cybersecurity startup, and the founder of a brand agency that specializes in B2B tech, digs into the messy, high-stakes process of brand maturation — when to do it, how to fund it, and how to bring your skeptical executive team along for the ride.

No brand theory. No agency pitches. Just the real frameworks, hard decisions, and lessons learned that marketing leaders need to hear before they walk into that rebranding conversation.

11:30 am
-
12:00 pm
CT
Waller AB Breakout Room (Virtual Room 2)
Single Speaker

The PLG Playbook For Early Stage Cyber Marketers

Product-led growth isn't just viable in cybersecurity, it's one of the most powerful tools available to resource-constrained teams looking to find product-market fit and build pipeline. Drawing on lessons learned from scaling Intruder to 3,000 customers with a PLG-first strategy, we'll cover how PLG accelerates demand gen and generates the kind of organic social proof that resonates in a sceptical buying environment, where the strategy genuinely falls short, and how to blend PLG with a sales-led approach as you grow. You'll leave with a practical lens for evaluating the role PLG can play in your business.

11:30 am
-
12:00 pm
CT
Waller CD General Session (Virtual Room 1)
Single Speaker

Securing Water Infrastructure: Cyber Defense Strategies for the Modern Threat Landscape

Municipal water infrastructure has become a prime target for cybercriminals, nation-state actors, and insider threats, making cybersecurity not just an IT concern, but a critical public health imperative. The 2021 Oldsmar, Florida incident, where a hacker attempted to poison a city's water supply by manipulating chemical levels remotely, and the Maroochy Shire breach that released millions of gallons of raw sewage, serve as stark reminders of what is at stake when water utilities remain unprotected.For cybersecurity professionals working on the go-to-market and business side of the industry, water utilities represent one of the most compelling and underserved market opportunities today. Thousands of municipal water systems nationwide operate with aging infrastructure, limited security budgets, and minimal OT specific expertise, creating both significant risk and significant demand for scalable, practical cybersecurity solutions.This session draws from real-world implementation experience securing water infrastructure for the City of Dallas, covering freshwater treatment plants, wastewater facilities, and flood control systems serving 3.5 million residents. Attendees will gain firsthand insight into how defense in depth strategies, including network segmentation, zero trust architecture, AI powered anomaly detection, and secure remote access, were successfully deployed across legacy operational technology environments without a single moment of unplanned downtime.Beyond the technical framework, this presentation unpacks the unique challenges of selling and marketing cybersecurity solutions to water utilities: navigating procurement cycles, communicating risk to non-technical municipal executives, and aligning solutions with regulatory mandates such as NIST SP 800-82 and ISA/IEC 62443.Whether you are crafting go-to-market strategy, building sales narratives, or developing content targeting critical infrastructure clients, this session delivers actionable intelligence to help cybersecurity organizations position their solutions effectively in one of the most important and fastest growing verticals in the industry.

11:30 am
-
12:00 pm
CT
Expo Hall (Moontower Hall)
Panel

AI-Driven Security as a Competitive Advantage

AI adoption in cybersecurity is accelerating, but many organizations struggle to translate technical innovation into clear business value. Based on real-world enterprise deployments across regulated industries, this session explores how AI-driven security automation improves resilience, strengthens brand trust, and supports executive-level risk narratives.

In this session, we will examine how agentic AI frameworks in modern SOC environments affect customer confidence, operational maturity, and strategic differentiation. Attendees will gain practical insights for aligning AI-powered security initiatives with marketing, trust, and growth objectives.

11:30 am
-
12:00 pm
CT
Waterloo 4 Summit Room
Single Speaker

When Creativity Meets Revenue: Designing Events That Perform

In this session, you'll learn how to create unforgettable event experiences that capture attention, spark meaningful conversations, and drive measurable business outcomes. Through real-world examples and practical frameworks, we'll explore how creative concepts, booth experiences, customer engagement, and content strategy can all be intentionally designed to support pipeline generation and revenue goals.

Whether you're planning a flagship conference, executive event, or customer experience, you'll walk away with actionable ideas for balancing bold creativity with data-driven decision making, proving the impact of your programs, and turning every event into a growth engine for your business.

11:30 am
-
12:00 pm
CT
Waterloo 3 Breakout Room
Single Speaker

A Time to Scale: The Competitive Advantage of Marketing Across Cultures

Let's talk about the operational reality of marketing across cultures. As cybersecurity companies grow globally, marketers must do more than simply translating messaging. They need to understand how different cultures build trust, collaborate, and come to an agreements. Drawing from years of experience leading international marketing initiatives from Norway across EMEA, APAC, and the Americas, Anne Simpson shares practical lessons on how cultural intelligence can strengthen cybersecurity marketing, global collaboration, and brand growth.

11:30 am
-
12:00 pm
CT
Waller EF Breakout Room (Virtual Room 3)

Lunch & Free Time

Refuel, connect, and keep the energy flowing! Lunch will be served in the Expo Hall, giving you time to explore the booths, meet sponsors, catch up with new connections, and continue the search for your conference buddy.

Looking for people who share your interests? Grab a seat at one of our Birds of a Feather tables, organized around specific topics and areas of interest. It’s an easy, informal way to exchange ideas and enjoy lunch with even more folks who truly “get” your world.

12:00 pm
-
1:15 pm
CT
Expo Hall (Moontower Hall)

Virtual Networking

Connect with fellow virtual attendees from around the world! Grab your favorite beverage, turn on your camera, and join an interactive networking session designed to make meeting new people easy.

Swap marketing ideas, discuss your favorite conference takeaways, and build lasting relationships with peers who understand the world of cybersecurity marketing and GTM.

12:00 pm
-
1:15 pm
CT
Virtual Conference

Tuesday

Book Your Complimentary Extras & Activities

Make the most of your CyberMarketingCon experience with these complimentary experiences. Reserve your spot in advance—or stop by to see if a walk-in time is available.

Podcast Studio

Record a podcast, interview, or video in a private, professional studio. Four microphones and an AV technician are included, so all you need to bring is your idea. Walk-ins are welcome when the studio is available.

One-on-One Expert Consultations

Get complimentary, personalized advice from experienced professionals—including cybersecurity industry analysts. Book a session to discuss marketing, channel strategy, graphic design, career strategy, your LinkedIn presence, or the cybersecurity market.

Professional Headshot

Refresh your LinkedIn photo, speaker profile, or professional bio with a polished new headshot. Visit the headshot studio in the Expo Hall, located behind the Fornix Marketing booth. Walk-ins are welcome when space is available.

Fun Station & Postcards

Add some personality to your conference badge with stickers, supplies, and badge ribbons—or write and mail a postcard to someone back home. Stop by the Fun Station in the Expo Hall aka Marketing Land whenever you’re ready for a creative break.

7:30 am
-
8:15 am
CT
Expo Hall (Moontower Hall)

Registration Desk Open!

Stop by the Registration Desk on the 2nd Floor Foyer and pick up your badge, swag bag, official conference notebook, and official conference t-shirt!

8:00 am
-
8:45 am
CT
Expo Hall (Moontower Hall)

Complimentary Coffee, Breakfast & Expo Hall (Marketing Land) Open!

Good morning, CyberMarketingCon! Join us at 8:00 AM for complimentary coffee and breakfast, catch up with fellow attendees, and explore the booths in the Expo Hall, aka Marketing Land!

We’ll have a set number of breakfasts ready to welcome you, available first come, first served while supplies last.

There’s plenty to explore: send a postcard from our fun station, drop in for a fresh headshot, catch content on the Expo Hall stage, or settle into a seat for networking and meetings. Come grab a bite and start the day with us!

8:00 am
-
9:00 am
CT
Waller CD General Session
Keynote

What the AI-Cyber Future Holds: A Conversation on the Market with Joseph Blankenship

Where will AI create real demand, and where could the hype outpace the opportunity? How will security buyers’ priorities evolve? And what should cybersecurity marketers be paying attention to now to avoid building tomorrow’s strategy around yesterday’s assumptions?

Joseph brings both an analyst’s view of the cybersecurity market and firsthand experience in cybersecurity marketing leadership. Together, he and Gianna will connect the big-picture questions to the decisions you’re making about positioning, messaging, and go-to-market strategy.

This session lets you step back and examine the market your campaigns need to succeed in. Expect a conversation about emerging opportunities, buyer expectations, and what it takes to tell a credible, differentiated story about AI.

We hope you start your day with a sharper view of what’s ahead and perspective on your company's next move.

9:00 am
-
9:35 am
CT
Waller CD General Session (Virtual Room 1)
Workshop

Crack the Case: AI‑Powered Win/Loss Analysis to Fuel Your Modern GTM Strategy

Most organizations think they understand why they win and lose deals until the data tells a different story. This session walks through multiple real-world case studies where GTM teams moved from anecdotal assumptions to an evidence‑driven win/loss program that reshaped their targeting, messaging, and enablement strategy through embodying a detective mindset.

This session shares the frameworks, workflows, lessons learned, and how GTM teams can replicate the approach.

9:55 am
-
10:20 am
CT
Waterloo 3 Breakout Room
Speed Session

Cybersecurity Marketing: Where Everything Is Important and Nothing Stands Out

Cybersecurity marketing is at a familiar point.Everyone is secure.Everyone is compliant.Everyone has AI.

And, yes ! Everyone sounds the same.

Buyers are overwhelmed, vendors blur together, and AI is making it easier than ever to produce content that looks good but doesn’t actually move anything forward. More activity, less clarity.

This session explores how to cut through that noise, not just by standing out, but by building a marketing engine that actually performs.

Drawing from hands-on experience in GRC and compliance marketing (where buyers are often thinking, “I probably need this… I just don’t know why yet”), we’ll focus on what works when the product is complex, the stakes are high, and differentiation is hard.

Key takeaways:- How to simplify complex cybersecurity messaging into something buyers actually understand (and act on)How to align marketing, sales, and customer success so the story holds up beyond the first touch

- How to use modern tools and AI to automate manual work, increase speed, and scale output, without sounding like everyone else using AI

-How to inject creativity in a crowded market to elevate brand and create real recall

- How to connect strong positioning to pipeline, turning clarity into a repeatable, higher-performing marketing system

This won’t be a theory-heavy session or a “10-step framework.”

Just practical lessons on how to operate in an AI-driven market where the goal isn’t more content.

9:55 am
-
10:05 am
CT
Waller CD General Session (Virtual Room 1)

Wednesday

Single Speaker

Selling Cybersecurity to Everyone: What CEOs Learn the Hard Way About Markets, Messaging, and Trust

Running a cyber company means constantly shifting how you talk about value. Governments, enterprises, Boards, CISOs, operators, and investors all buy for different reasons, yet most cyber firms try and sell to all of them with the same language. For a while, we did the same thing and that disconnect is one of the biggest reasons good products/services/solutions struggle in market.

This session is a candid look at what I’ve learned as a CEO of a cyber firm and Board member to several others, selling across very different customer segments. I’ll share real lessons learned, especially the mistakes, about how messaging breaks down, why differentiation gets harder as companies scale and cyber goes from being a niche to being mainstream, and how internal tools, data, and lived experience can be used to create credibility.

This session focuses on practical realities - what actually resonates with buyers, what executives and boards listen for, and how CEOs can align product, sales, and marketing around trust and differentiation. One example I'll focus on is the development and GTM of a cyber product/solution we built which ultimately required a full pivot of approach and vertical. he goal is to help cyber leaders stop sounding like everyone else and start communicating in ways that reflect how buyers really make decisions.

9:25 am
-
10:10 am
CT
Waterloo 4 Summit Room
Panel

Maximizing Executive Relationships: 5 Strategies for Advocacy in Cybersecurity

In the cybersecurity industry, your most successful customers are often the ones who need to remain the most anonymous. When your buyers prioritize discretion, standard advocacy programs often fail to gain traction. The key is to stop chasing public case studies and start focusing on building deep, long-term executive relationships.This session provides a practical framework for navigating these constraints. We will share 5 actionable tips for maximizing executive relationships to drive advocacy, regardless of the industry's need for secrecy. You will learn how to earn the time of security leaders, align your program with their specific business goals, and build a sustainable influence loop that thrives behind the scenes. Join us to discover how to turn your executive engagement into a high-impact engine for customer advocacy.

9:25 am
-
10:10 am
CT
Waller CD General Session (Virtual Room 1)

Mixer: Influencer + Cyber Brand Meetup

An informal, no-agenda meetup for anyone working at the intersection of cybersecurity brands and creator marketing — whether you're a creator looking for brand partners, a marketer looking for creators, or just curious how the two worlds are starting to collide.

We'll kick things off with a simple icebreaker (who are you, and why did you come to the influencer/cyber brand meetup?) and let the conversation take it from there!

A host will be there to facilitate introductions and conversations for the shy! :)

9:25 am
-
10:20 am
CT
Mixer Space in Expo Hall (Moontower Hall)
Single Speaker

AI-Powered Partner Enablement: Scaling Cybersecurity GTM Through Intelligent Agents

Many cybersecurity companies rely on partners for their route to market, but enabling those partners effectively at scale is a constant challenge. Traditional approaches fall short when partners need 24/7 support across multiple geographies, languages, and time zones.

In this session, I'll share how we built an AI agent that goes far beyond basic lead enrichment to become a true partner enablement tool. Our agent is embedded directly into partners' existing workflows—their CRMs, Slack channels, email systems, and Teams accounts—making it accessible exactly where they need it, when they need it, in the language they need it.

But here's what makes it different: our agent doesn't just answer questions. It can assess the security posture of any potential client on the planet, providing partners with actionable insights that help them sell more effectively. This isn't a chatbot—it's a true AI assistant that understands both our product and the cybersecurity landscape.

I'll walk through:- Why we chose AI agents over traditional partner enablement methods- How we designed for workflow integration (not just another tool)- The technical and strategic decisions that made this work- Real results: what this has meant for our partner relationships and sales- Practical lessons for other cybersecurity companies building similar solutions

Whether you're in leadership, product marketing, channel management, or GTM strategy, you'll leave with actionable insights on how to leverage AI to scale your partner enablement efforts.

10:20 am
-
11:00 am
CT
Waller CD General Session (Virtual Room 1)
Panel

Partner Marketing Unfiltered

Maisa Fernandez of Palo Alto Networks will kick off the session by sharing her current journey rebuilding the partner marketing program to be more outcome and revenue driven, with a focus on partner profitability, co-sell velocity, field activation, and measurable impact.

From there, we’ll break into smaller roundtables for candid peer discussion around the challenges and opportunities shaping partner marketing today. Participants will share real-world experiences, compare approaches, and collaborate on practical ideas they can take back to their own organizations. The highly interactive format is designed to encourage open conversation, fresh perspectives, and meaningful peer-to-peer learning.

Discussion Tables will include (pick 2):

  • Improving visibility into partner-generated pipeline
  • Scaling across a diverse partner ecosystem
  • Driving adoption of partner self-service tools
  • Identifying the highest-impact partner marketing tactics
  • Open Mic: Choose Your Own Adventure

Come with a challenge and leave with the ways to solve it.

10:20 am
-
11:00 am
CT
Waller EF Breakout Room (Virtual Room 3)

Product Marketing Roundtables

Join fellow cybersecurity product marketers for focused, small-group conversations about the challenges shaping your work. Exchange practical ideas on positioning, messaging, product launches, competitive intelligence, sales enablement, customer insights, and translating complex solutions into clear value.

These peer-led roundtables are designed for candid discussion, shared problem-solving, and actionable takeaways. Bring a question, a challenge, or a lesson worth sharing—and leave with fresh perspectives from marketers who understand the work.

10:20 am
-
11:00 am
CT
Waller AB Breakout Room (Virtual Room 2)

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