The Gately Report: Special RSA Edition with Flashpoint, Orca Security, MoreThe Gately Report: Special RSA Edition with Flashpoint, Orca Security, More

RSA CONFERENCE USA — That’s a wrap for this week’s massive RSA Conference USA in San Francisco, the first live RSA since the start of the pandemic.

The event drew a smaller crowd than usual, but this certainly wasn’t a small event, with tens of thousands in attendance and more than 300 exhibitors.

On Day 3 of RSA 2022, we caught up with Jim Taylor, chief product officer at RSA, to talk about the conference and its implications for the cybersecurity industry.

In addition, we caught up with Flashpoint, Orca Security, HelpSystems and NTT Application Security.

In a Q&A with Channel Futures, Taylor looks at the significance of this year’s RSA and where the industry goes from here.

Channel Futures: What are your impressions of RSAC 2022? Any firsts? Any surprises?

Jim Taylor: I would say it’s actually been really awesome. RSA has been going for so long, and I think we all just kind of took it for granted for a while. And as soon as you take something away from people and say, “No, you can’t have it,” then that’s the thing that they really, really want. So this year kind of feels like a resurgence. There’s a huge buzz around the show. There’s so much energy and activity. Attendance is really good. So we’re seeing a lot of enthusiasm. We can’t claim all the credit for that. I think part of that is people just want to be with people again. And so it’s been fantastic this week, a ton of big announcements, a lot of activity, but a really good energy about the show. It feels like it’s … back and stronger than ever.

CF: What does this latest RSA say about the current state of the industry?

JT: I would say it’s a very interesting time for the security industry. There’s just been so much going on; so much has changed.
And that’s been a big theme of all of the keynotes consistently. What they’re really saying is, “Hey, the world has changed.” Things like hybrid work are here to stay. The way that we do stuff is dramatically changed. IT and tech tends to evolve at … [their] own pace and I think the last two years have been a real forcing function. And so cyber needs to do that, to deal with that. Who knew there was going to be a war in Ukraine with Russia? Who knew there was going to be a global pandemic? So we’re seeing cyber react, and it’s reacting very quickly. … [RSA CEO] Rohit Ghai did a great keynote where he was talking about how you almost need a crisis to foster transformation. And I think we’re seeing that.

Scroll through our slideshow above for more from Taylor and more happenings at RSA Conference USA.