RSA 2013 It's a Wrap!

RSA 2013 is a wrap!

For anyone that didn’t make it to San Francisco’s Moscone Center to catch the show in person – or the great weather this past week – I can only tell you, you missed out.

Not only did the show deliver on tracks and sessions covering all aspects of the security industry, it delivered some notable speakers including Tom Ridge, first secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and former governor of Pennsylvania; Howard Schmidt, former cybersecurity advisor to President Bush; and Arthur ‘Art’ Coviello, Jr., executive chairman RSA and executive vice president, EMC, who opened the show with a Queen extravaganza.

If you followed along with the action on Twitter @RSAconference or #RSAC you probably picked up that mobile was a massive theme this year alongside Big Data – yes, that’s right Big Data. I’ll get to that in a moment. Mobile was clearly evident at the Innovation Sandbox, which kicked off the show on Day 1. Dr. Hugh Thompson, program committee chair, RSA Conference and host of the Innovation Sandbox, said that more than 30 percent of submissions to this year’s start-up showdown were focused on the consumer. The show floor was one vast expo on companies offering protection for mobile devices - at the device level and at the edge of the network. There were appliances to secure remote access, minimize risk, and maintain policies and password management of all types.

Speakers throughout the week talked about shifts in security brought about by the BYOD revolution and fueled by user’s social behavior. Attacks are becoming much more robust and personal. Hackers and cyber-criminals monitor employee activity on social networks such as LinkedIn and Twitter to build a thoughtful approach to their attack.

Analytics and Big Data play a key role in the shifting security landscape. They are much more than buzzwords. As an industry we’re all talking about the value that analytics could bring to any company that can sort through the vast amounts of data being generated and collected by our social interactions. Adversaries are doing the exact same thing.

What needs to change in order to secure our nation against these new threats? Some speakers said collaboration between public and private sectors. Others said more open standards and our ability to be agile. Many believe solutions will come from innovators – start-ups. So keep a close watch on those top ten from the Innovation Sandbox. They may just have what it takes to make us all sleep a bit better at night.

As far as industry events go – everyone I spoke with said RSA was still at the top of their list to attend. As a first time attendee I could understand why. Oh and I heard the parties were pretty great too.