This year’s RSA Conference 
wrapped up just last week, so we wanted to take a look at the top trends and issues that emerged at the show. Here’s a condensed round-up of what a few industry pundits are saying about this year’s show:
There was an unusual level of gloom at the RSA Conference this year, and for good reason: a number of the biggest and most respected security firms have been very recently breached, including RSA Security, VeriSign, and Symantec.
This wasn’t the first year the IT security industry was embarrassed. Last year, HB Gary Federal was breached and that event consumed a considerable amount of talk at the show. That’s not to forget the recent big name breaches at organizations such as Google, the U.S. Department of State and Nasdaq in recent years.
“There is a feeling that no matter what steps one takes, it can’t be won. Systems can’t be kept adequately secured,” said a security executive at an international electronics manufacturer.
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- The general tone I heard is that we’re tired of the Cloud as a buzz-word. We’re tired of having to discuss the same Cloud-y topics over and over. But the fact is, we need to keep doing it. The Cloud sessions were well-attended because for many security leaders, it’s where our organizations are going, and we’re not prepared to lead the way yet. So this love/hate relationship with Cloud security exists.
- BYOD is the phrase of the year. Some people call it “consumerization” of IT… but that’s so 2010. Bring your own device (BYOD) was 2012’s hottest topic, with long lines to get into those sessions, especially anything that dealt with the iPad or iPhone. This subject most reveals the lagging nature of security. The first iPhone was released in 2007, and the first CEO probably required his IT staff to support it about 15 minutes later. Yet we are still working on the right balance of corporate governance versus consumer freedom, and how we can enable remote access to corporate data without running the risk of this data getting into the wrong hands.
- Big data. Personally, I think this topic is cool, and this is probably my favorite trend from RSA. Analyzing big data is a relatively unexplored frontier. We’re doing an adequate job of aggregating logs and amassing large databases. But we’re terrible at figuring out how to parse this data and deliver real value to the business…There were a number of sessions where we could talk and learn more about how security can utilize big data to discover trends and better protect the environment.
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We’ll continue our RSA round-up on Thursday. Until then, what was your biggest lesson learned from RSA 2012?
