In prior years, the RSA Conference focused on themes such as Zero Trust, geopolitical risk, and automation. While those themes were still present at this year’s conference, it was harder to discern one dominant central theme for the conference. I inferred that “no new buzzwords” exemplifies the theme. This year’s RSA Conference suggested that the industry is moving away from flashy marketing jargon and paring down to the basics to make security accessible to both newcomers to the industry and nontechnical stakeholders.

Security is everyone’s job. Security roles and responsibilities are no longer restricted to just the IT team. This was reflected in the conference’s multidisciplinary approach. In fact, the official theme of the RSA Conference this year was the “human element.” Between the more technical tracks offered by the conference, such as cryptography, hackers and threats, and machine learning and artificial intelligence, there were also many more multidisciplinary tracks offered, including business perspectives, the C-suite view, law, policy and government, and privacy, among others. The tracks that were offered further emphasize the jigsaw puzzle of stakeholders that are involved in security throughout an organization.

I attended several compelling keynote and breakout sessions and was pleasantly surprised by the breadth of topics offered. I attended sessions covering topics ranging from psychology, product security, biometrics and privacy, and investment/finance.

Walking around the show floor, I took special notice of the short marketing slogans vendors displayed in their booths. I wrote down ~50 slogans and used them to create the below word cloud. Many of this year’s slogans further emphasize the theme of distributing security responsibility throughout the organization. As the word cloud indicates, words such as “intelligent,” “business,” and “humanity” are prominent. Some of my favorite slogans from the conference that emphasize this:

  • The art of cybersecurity (Trend Micro)
  • Secure digital transformation (Zscaler)
  • Keep business productive AF (Malwarebytes)
  • Protect the pulse of your business (Imperva)
  • Humanizing security (ElevenPaths)
  • Secure your everything (Check Point)

RSA Conference excelled at building an interesting and relevant program for all security stakeholders. Emphasizing the “human element” of cybersecurity, the conference further affirmed that security is everyone’s job throughout the organization.

Please note that on Wednesday, March 18, 2020, Merritt Maxim, VP and research director at Forrester, will be holding a webinar recapping RSA Conference 2020 and sharing collective insights from across the security and risk team. To register, please click here.