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5 Key Trends and Takeaways from RSA Conference 2020

3 Min Read
PAN Communications
  • Blog
  • Technology

5 Key Trends and Takeaways from RSA Conference 2020

PAN Communications

PAN’s security team has been hard at work in recent months preparing for RSA Conference, the industry’s largest event. Taking place in San Francisco last week, the conference drew more than 700 speakers, 650 vendors and 36,000 attendees – not to mention the 12 PAN clients who exhibited, presented and met with top media. This year’s conference centered around the theme of “The Human Element,” exploring humanity’s evolving role in the fight for cyber resiliency.

With RSAC 2020 in the books, here are our top five takeaways:
  • Coronavirus Takes Center Stage: News around the outbreak of the coronavirus dominated the conversation as the event kicked off on February 24. Noted in Politico, large organizations such as IBM, Verizon and AT&T all backed out of RSAC late this year amid fears of infection. That said, further reporting revealed that attendance wasn’t overly impacted.event marketing and pr strategy Veronica Combs of TechRepublic detailed what it was like to attend a conference during a major health scare. She noted that organizers encouraged attendees to bump elbows instead of shaking hands. Later in the week, Business Insider reported that San Francisco’s mayor, London Breed, declared a state of emergency due to the virus. RSAC wasn’t the only conference affected, as Facebook cancelled F8, its annual developer conference, according to The Guardian.
  • Rock the Vote: With the 2020 election rapidly approaching, election security was top of mind. Christopher Krebs, Director of the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity arm, shared that he believes the biggest areas for concern are voter-registration databases and other areas where information is centralized. Christopher also stressed the impact ransomware is having on the United States, especially for schools, municipalities and hospitals. His session was widely picked up in publications such as InfoSecurity Magazine and Business Insider. Additionally, AP released a survey demonstrating that about half of Americans say they are highly concerned that the country’s voting systems might be vulnerable to hackers, and that many others are strongly concerned about foreign interference. Our client White Ops mused on combatting botnets for NBC.
  • Client Spotlights: PAN client Mimecast announced its Threat Intelligence Report: RSA Edition, analyzing 202 billion emails from the past quarter to identify globally trending threats. In further client news, Rapid7 announced a new partnership with security provider Snyk, while CyberX unveiled a new API-level integration with Microsoft Azure Security Center for IoT. CSO published its own take on the best new products announced during the marketing and pr event strategyconference, citing PAN clients such as ManageEngine, Privitar and Sumo Logic.
  • Hacks, Vulnerabilities and Breaches: Wired reported on a session from former National Security Agency analyst and Jamf researcher Patrick Wardle, which detailed how North Korea’s Lazarus Group hackers are recycling old mac malware. One of the biggest breaches announced during the week was that Clearview AI, a facial recognition company, informed its customers that that a hacker stole its entire client list, as noted in SC Magazine. Other vulnerabilities announced at RSAC include issues with a popular baby monitor that give attackers full access to personal information and sensitive video footage, which was highlighted in Threatpost, as well as a vulnerability in the Trifo Ironpie robot vacuum that could let hackers remotely access video streams from the device, reported in CNET.
  • Wrap It Up: There were a number of roundup style articles published on product announcements, news and more at the show. CRN published a number of these, including one which outlines the 13 hottest endpoint and network security tools, as well as another detailing the 30 hottest new cybersecurity tools; featured clients included Synopsys’ Code Sight IDE and White Ops Application Integrity.

Prevailing despite lingering health concerns, RSA Conference 2020 provided great opportunities for our clients, driving constructive discussion around our ever changing industry. The aforementioned trends and topics will almost surely remain prominent as we as we enter March and the road to RSAC 2021 kicks off. Onward!

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