Melanie Johnson-Holliday
The world’s cybersecurity industry will descend on San Francisco in just a few weeks’ time to discuss everything you can imagine about today’s threat landscape. This year’s theme is “Stronger Together” and that, we most certainly are.
As RSA’s website states; “We are a community of many. No one goes it alone; we build on each other’s diverse knowledge to create the next breakthrough – exchanging ideas, sharing our success stories, and bravely examining our failures. With a world of evolving threats to stop and solve, only by working as a team and continually adding new perspectives will we be able to affect the kind of progress that can shape policy, establish new best practices, and ensure our defences become more diverse, more resolute, and far more effective.”
The explanation finishes with a great quote; “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” – Helen Keller. This for me says it all. In today’s world, we can no longer fight the good fight alone, we have to work together to overcome the overwhelming threat landscape and new technologies that are shaking up everyday life.
It is a fantastic theme, and one I’m sure will resonate with everyone who is attending the event, but what do we think the other talking points will be at the show?
I thought it would be quite good fun to predict the key topics people will be chatting about over a coffee (or sugary energy drink, depending on how your day is going). I know the topics I’ve chosen are a bit obvious but that will lead to many conversations at the show. So what are they? Let’s take a look:
Is social media imploding?
All our favourite social media sites are having a hard time, and quite rightly so if they are putting our security at risk. Rumour has it Tik Tok has been collecting large amounts of user data, including location data, device information, and browsing history but what are they doing with this data?
There have been concerns the Chinese government could access this data through TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, and use it for surveillance purposes. This has caused it to be banned from UK official government devices, adding to similar restrictions imposed in France, Norway, Canada, the European Union and the United States.
Parts of Twitter’s source code have been leaked, and according to the New York Times; “One concern is that the code includes security vulnerabilities that could give hackers or other motivated parties the means to extract user data or take down the site, they said.” Ouch, that has to hurt Mr Musk after the platform’s other recent news.
Surely this is going to be a big topic at RSA, but more importantly how the debate around data privacy and protection. How does the world regulate these major social platforms, what data privacy laws are needed or is it that ‘Joe Bloggs’ on the street continuously needs educating on the security issues around social media?
Is the cloud properly secure?
We are still managing the fallout from the pandemic with our reliance on cloud technology becoming critical to the way we work…or the way we ‘remote work’ constantly.
Many of the technologies being showcased at RSA will have a ‘cloud’ element to them to heighten the importance of securing barrier-less environments. But, how do you secure an environment or network that can be accessed from anywhere at any time through multiple points? This is something that is continuously changing as the tactics of cybercriminals evolve and still needs to be addressed, although there are many solutions that do help.
I’m sure there will be many heated discussions on how the cloud can be secured with numerous security professionals eager to find out what the answer is, or is there an answer?
AI, AI, AI…ChatGPT
No one is going to get away from this conversation. It will be everywhere.
Whatever we think of AI, ChatGPT and its close competitors, it ain’t going away anytime soon and will change the cybersecurity industry forever. How we manage AI is going to be the way we can work with it harmoniously and use it for good.
I’m sure there will be many collaborative conversations about how the technology can be used as a defence tool rather than just an attack method in cybersecurity. We can’t be scared of it, we have to embrace it to be able to make it work in our favour.
Now, please don’t judge me for predicting the most obvious talking points at RSA, but these are the ones I see causing the most challenges. If you disagree, then let me know what topics you think will be discussed at the show, I’d be keen to hear them.
