Cybersecurity Takes Forefront at RSA Conference

It’s an exciting time to attend the RSA Conference next week in San Francisco. With a theme of Where the World Talks Security, RSA realizes cybersecurity has never been more important in our world than it is now. Even the mainstream media is taking notice of major data breaches.

Companies, as well as government agencies, all face a questionable budgetary future and have to take a different look at cybersecurity. It’s become a vital issue organizations have to balance, finding better ways to stay safe while at the same time being pushed to the limit financially.

Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) have quite a task before them in 2013 and beyond. More and more cyber attacks threaten their data every day. The RSA Conference has responded by creating a new track of sessions especially for CISOs called the CISO Viewpoint. Those sessions will be packed with CISOs from around the globe, looking for greater insight on the latest trends and issues in information security.

Another new track of sessions this year at RSA Conference is Enterprise Defense, covering policy, planning, and emerging areas of enterprise security architecture and strategy. By signing up for this advanced track, you’ll learn how to better protect corporate assets from intrusion as well as other topics including vulnerability research, forensics, security policies and assessment, access control, and threat management.

Other new tracks include Security Trends & Innovation, Identity & Access Management, and The Human Element, which will feature topics on insider threats, social networking, social engineering, and security awareness programs. Sessions will explore how people make trust choices with technology, innovative ways to secure the human, and how classic attacks are being re-engineered to include a human element.

If you’re lucky enough to be on RSA’s Special Government session track, mark your itinerary for Michael Daniel’s workshop entitled 007 or DDOS: What is Real-world Cyber Policy? on Thursday morning. Daniel just happens to be special assistant to President Obama and the White House’s cybersecurity coordinator. He will discuss the administration’s cybersecurity agenda and the application of national power with respect to cyber incidents. Who wouldn’t be curious about what can and should the government do about cyber espionage and attacks?

Cisco Systems doesn’t send their top execs out to these large IT conferences unless they are prepared to impress. Chris Young, Senior Vice President of Cisco’s Security and Government Group, is no exception. He wowed security geeks at last year’s RSA keynote with his Lock It Down and Free It Up keynote address. It was so good, I blogged about it. For this year’s RSA Conference, his address entitled Securing the Data Center’s Future Today will cover how virtualization and software-defined networking are the game changers for the next generation data center. He will cover the opportunities and risks for securing tomorrow’s data center, while defining a roadmap for the industry. I’ll be there with pen in hand, so look back here after the show for my blog post on his keynote address.

Other notable keynote speakers include Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia. In his address entitled Democracy and the Internet, he will share his thoughts on how the Internet will democratize developing countries by making the world a more even playing field, opening markets, promoting cultural understanding, and giving developing nations the resources they need to compete in the 21st century.

Also scheduled to speak is gamification guru Jane McGonigal, whose keynote address entitled How Gaming Can Make a Better World will touch on her theory of how the application of game-design principles can solve real-life challenges. Her most recent projects include game development for the White House, Institute for the Future’s Games for Healthcare initiative, as well as Paths Out Of Poverty, a crowdsourcing game for the Rockefeller Foundation.

Oh yeah, and former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will speak too.

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