As we head into RSA 2023, a question that’s top of mind for all of our clients is, what will drive coverage around this year’s show? This question got us thinking — what were the hottest trends coming out of last year’s show, and were those topics the same as the conversation drivers for the rest of the year? We decided to do some analysis to find out.

To build this analysis, we first researched a few different lists around the 2023 hottest trends in cyber security, pulling the ones that were most common. Our final list included ransomware, zero trust, XDR, MDR, cloud security, AI, IoT, Security as a Service, cyber regulations, nation state attacks, phishing and cryptomining. We then did an analysis of those topics in Cision, for dates between May 30 and June 16, 2022 so we could look at coverage starting a week prior, through the event and then a week after. We used the key term + any mention of “RSA 2022” OR “RSAC” OR “RSAC 2022” OR “RSA Conference.” RSA” by itself was removed as a qualifier due to search pulling in the company “RSA” vs the actual event. Here’s what we found: 

Topline Findings

• Overall coverage peaked from June 6 to June 8, in line with event timing.  
• XDR, AI, and zero trust were the most popular topics tied to RSA 2022, with MDR and IoT garnering notable mentions as well. 
• Pre-event: Conversations picked up about one week in advance of the conference but were nominal in comparison to chatter once the event started. 
• Post-event: Conversations tapered off come July, but some of the hottest topics such as AI, IoT and ZeroTrust remained very prevalent throughout EOY. MDR and XDR, which were in the top five hottest topics during RSA, were subsequently overtaken by ransomware and cloud security, showing that product news is still king at RSA. 

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During the two-and-a-half-week period pre, during and post RSA, five topics emerged as notable leaders in driving coverage: AI, Zero Trust, XDR, MDR and IoT.  

Overall coverage was driven by M&A/funding, Global InfoSec awards, and product announcements. Some conversations, including those around AI, trended higher pre-event rather than post, suggesting hype around these topics that was not matched by conversations at the event itself. Across each key term, coverage peaked on June 6, the start of RSA 2022.  

Coverage Breakdown by Time Period

Below is how all of the key terms landed in conversations across the two-and-a-half-week period we reviewed, broken down by pre, show and post coverage. We removed cyber regulations, nation state attacks, phishing and cryptomining from the graphs, due to lack of coverage tied to the show: 

One week prior

Week of RSA

One week post-show

What Drove Coverage? A Deeper Dive 

Next we looked more closely at what news was actually driving coverage for the five hottest topics: MDR, XDR, zero trust, AI and IoT. 

Some of our key findings included: 

AI coverage drivers:  

• IBM Tackles Growing Attack Surface Risks with Plans to Acquire Randori   
• CrowdStrike Introduces CrowdStrike Asset Graph to Help Organizations Proactively Identify and Eliminate Blind Spots  
• Cisco Calls for Integrated Security Strategies to Combat Cybercrime 

Zero Trust coverage drivers:  

• Intel Announces Commitment to Security with Tightened Zero Trust Efforts  
• Microsoft Rolls Out Zero Trust Transition Challenges/Details  
• BlackBerry Launches New Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) Solution with CylanceGATEWAY  

 XDR coverage drivers:  

•  SentinelOne Launches in India with a $50M Investment  
• New Radware Survey Reveals API Security Weaknesses  
• Cyber Defense Magazine Award and Global InfoSec Award Winners announced 

RSA 2022 Postmortem Analysis

In the two weeks leading up to and following RSA 2022, Zero Trust, AI, MDR, XDR and IoT dominated share of voice. By and large, each of these five terms saw balanced coverage in the six months post-RSA with moderate peaks and valleys throughout this period. Ultimately, ransomware and cloud security replaced XDR and MDR to finish out the year as part of the five hottest trends. 

Here is what was driving coverage for those terms: 

AI

Because AI is generally such a large of a topic, we only analyzed conversations around AI and cyber or cybersecurity. AI peaked in Nov. (34,384) and Dec. (34,461) contributing to about 36% of coverage for the term during this period. 

Key drivers include:  

• A surge in federal investments for emerging technologies including, AI  
• NetApp rolling out BlueXP – AI-enabled health and status monitoring for orgs.  
• Facebook and Twitter’s AI chat-bot vulnerabilities  

IoT

As with AI, we only looked at IoT conversations related to cyber or cybersecurity. September (16,138) and October (16,287) saw peaks for IoT with November being the highest coverage generator, yielding 16,356 mentions . Those conversations centered largely around The White House’s implementation of a national cybersecurity labeling program for IoT devices.  

MDR & XDR

As the trend of consolidation persisted, organizations needed to consider how to streamline IT Security Vendors turning to XDR and MDR solutions.  

October drove the most coverage for MDR (8,346) — a 73% increase from one month post-RSA (July – 4,821) mainly due to Kaspersky’s new partner program and updated product course including MDR and Secure Remote Workplace, as well as exposure around Microsoft’s zero-day vulnerabilities.  

September saw 8,431 pieces of XDR coverage largely driven by: company announcements coming out of Fal.Con 2022 including CrowdStrike bolstering its XDR approach by expanding and rebranding its CrowdXDR Alliance to “Hybrid XDR” alongside Cisco, Fortinet and ForgeRock.  

Google’s acquisition of Mandiant, Zscaler’s Zero Trust Exchange platform as well as Trellix launching its Advanced Research Centre providing intelligence and cutting-edge content to security analysts while powering its XDR platform.  

What Publications are Driving the Most Reach?

We also wanted to see what outlets were driving the most reach around RSA news. 

Among the top publishers by reach were both traditional media outlets like Business Insider, Washington Post and WSJ as well as corporate blogs, including Cisco and Microsoft 365.  

Forbes was a top publisher by reach for four of the five hottest RSA topics analyzed including XDR, AI, Zero Trust and IoT. It only was not a top publisher by reach for MDR.  

Syndications through wire services like Associated Press and Yahoo! Finance ranked as top publishers for some of the hot topics, in particular MDR.  

Overall, company blogs such as Cisco, Mandiant and Microsoft 365 showed up across the board showing the reach power of large company-owned content sources. 

Is there anything that surprises you about the top trends coming out of RSA 2022? Or would you have guessed something different? We’d love to connect with you directly to hear your thoughts, as well as what you think may be the hot topics of RSA this year. 

Learn more about what to expect for cyber security in 2023.