Well, it’s not quite the first full day of the RSA securityconference in San Francisco, but with all the activity and hub-bub itcertainly felt like it. The Moscone center is actually pretty welloccupied with RSA-an’s and there is significant floor space for theexhibit expo allocated. I don’t know if everyone was clammering for afree beer, wine, and mini turkey burger, but there was a significantaudience attendance from not just vendors, press/media, but actuallyreal customer and partner types.
From a wireless threat perspective, the show was filled with theusual “Free Public WiFi”, “free moscone wifi” (I don’t believe theyhave this), and ah-hoc clients galore. Nothing unusual here. Althoughwhat would be interesting to analyze further (if we surveyed the crowd)is in 2009, how many people still actually connect to these rogue orspoofed wireless networks. I bet the number is considerably greaterthan zero as this black magic of wireless still perplexes the averagemarketing or sales exec in the tech industry.
It is no surprise that “security” is the new black for 2009, i.e.,the new recession. I see product company everywhere from securing youremail databases, backup and recovery of your server configuration mgmt,the usual Conflicker detectors and analytics, and every color ofappliance with some content inspection whizbang. But I’m hearing incustomer’s voices that they are really looking for someone to makesense out of it all. Managing the individual elements in an overallsecurity architecture seems best left to the big boys: McAfee, IBM,RSA/EMC, etc. But I look forward to finding the “furry little animals”(aka, young companies) at the show and their innovations for the newage of cyberthreats, massive govt cybersecurity programs and budgets,supposed state-sponsored cyberterrorism, and a new American presidentwho wants to make a name for himself as his commissioned cybersecurityreport comes to fruition soon.
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Ozzie Diaz
Ghost blogger for ComputerWorld Canada during RSA
Regular blogger at www.ozziediaz.com, and President & CEO, AirPatrol Corp.
