RSA Conference 2011 recap

Many of the things I noticed at RSA Conference this year were similar to what I’ve heard other people say.  1) It was busier than previous years.  2) There were a few more brands attending compared to previous years.  3) There was a bit less focus on cloud (which is a good thing).

The thing that struck me was the breadth of impacted verticals that attended this year.  In the sessions I hosted and in other venues I noticed more participation from some of the non-standard types of companies.  There were gaming companies, e-commerce companies, even shipping companies.  As I’ve been talking about for a while, the issues that RSA Conference discusses impacts these types of companies as much as it does financial institutions.

A frustration I have – the conference tends to focus on outdated threats.  At the eFraudNetwork someone said “I bet next year we’ll have a lot of talk about Man in the Mobile”.  But MitMo is here now!  The conference’s tactic on carefully vetting content is a good one, but given that you have to apply almost a year in advance means that it can be difficult to talk about anything new.

One other comment – in past years it seemed like “fraud” was the “f-word” at RSA Conference.  Starting last year, and even more so this year, there were quite a few discussions about fraud.  My belief is that fraud and security are actually fighting the same fight – one from the reconnaissance level, the other from the execution side – but in the end, the people who perpetrate security attacks are often the people who are perpetrating the fraud attacks as well.  It was great to see more joint conversations.