RSAC 2024 is officially in the books! For me, this was my first time attending the RSAC Conference (unless you count the 2021 virtual edition) and it was incredibly exciting to meet some of the brightest minds in the industry and hear what concerns were being discussed the most within the infosec community.
Stand Out RSAC Talks
In our RSAC preview article, Kali noted several sessions discovered on the website that we had the pleasure of attending live. In addition to those talks, other sessions on the exhibit floor broke out as our team was walking by and would have otherwise missed. Taylor Wilkes-Pierce also had the opportunity to give a presentation in the Briefing Center delving into the first 24 hours of predicted and observed threats in DNS. This session was not recorded but we have a similar on-demand session available on the RSA Conference website. Below are some other notable talks.
The Power of Community
The Conference’s opening keynote set the tone for an incredibly collaborative event. Executive Chairman for the RSAC Dr. Hugh Thompson kicked off the conference with an inspiring keynote address that looked back on the accomplishments of an information security community 33 years in the making. Dr. Thompson noted that we should never underestimate what is possible by our adversaries and problems that seemed impossible to solve have been solved through the power of community. “Individuals may be smart, but a community is wise, individuals are strong, but a community is formidable.” This was an inspiring charge to share observations and use the rest of the conference to work together.
Innovation Sandbox
The innovation sandbox offered a look into the latest companies and capabilities in cybersecurity. Standing out among the finalists was this year’s winner of “Most Innovative Startup,” Reality Defender. In just three minutes, Co-founder & CEO Ben Colman broke down the potential real-world threats of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how AI can be used by defenders to quickly detect AI and eliminate threats via their easy-to-integrate API.
How Sworn Enemies Found a Truce (Sort of) to Achieve NIST Compliance
In the Federal Space, the Zero Trust Initiative from CISA has garnered a lot of deserved recognition, but this session was a great reminder of other forms of compliance prioritized by the United States government. It followed the story of a security and engineering team looking to find alignment to meet NIST standards, specifically NIST 800-53 and NIST 800-171 but the lessons learned could be applied to those looking to meet compliance for NIST CSF 2.0. Jonall Cobble and Jason Luce gave an excellent presentation that tied in the “power of community” charge from the opening keynote and illustrated what the art of the possible looked like when security and engineering work to understand each other’s roles, agree on a framework, determine the requirements, commit to a plan, determine the gaps, and audit. The result of this process can lead to significant organizational wins, but empathy is necessary to bridge the gap.
Infoblox & DomainTools Better Together
We were beyond excited to have the opportunity to send our Senior Solutions Engineer, Andrew Bukta, to the Infoblox booth and present with Albert Chew, Infoblox’s Product & Solutions Marketing lead, on how DNS is the backbone of the network! The presentation noted that 92% of malicious activity can be blocked using DNS. With Infoblox being the DNS experts inside the network and DomainTools the DNS experts outside the network, utilizing solutions that offer the user full DNS visibility.
Breaking Bread on Breaking Badness
In addition to attending some incredible sessions, Kali Fencl had the opportunity to sit down with some of the brightest minds in the infosec community. The culmination of the talks filled up our “Art of the Possible” podcast mini-series! See highlights of the first talk in the installment below and stay tuned for more on our website every Wednesday at 9 AM Pacific time.
Jori VanAntwerp and Steve Stone
On day one of RSAC, we got to sit down with Jori VanAntwerp, Founder and CEO of EmberOT, and Steve Stone of Rubrik Zero Labs. In the first half, Jori discusses what it’s like to found two start-ups including how to support the community and finding the right staff. In the second half, Steve discusses Rubrik Zero Labs’ latest whitepaper: Measuring Your Data’s Risk, especially as it pertains to the healthcare industry.
See You At RSAC 2025!
If you have thoughts on the sessions, parties, or experiences you had in San Francisco, we’d love to hear them. If you’d like to learn more about DomainTools, be sure to check out our next steps page and schedule a time to talk. We hope to see you on the road at our upcoming events this summer and look forward to RSAC 2025!
