'Abundance of caution' pushes RSA Conference to June

The goal is to "bring the industry safely together in-person," organizers say, mindful of the omicron variant of COVID-19.

The RSA Conference has been delayed until June out of “an abundance of caution,” given the recent surge in COVID-19 cases across the country caused by the omicron variant, organizers say.

The annual cybersecurity industry gathering, usually held in February, will begin June 6 in San Francisco.

“The health and safety of our community remains our highest priority,” said Linda Gray Martin, vice president, RSA Conference. “With the surge in cases of the Omicron variant in the U.S. and around the world, we believe the best decision we can make is to delay the event until later in the year when we can bring the industry safely together in-person.”

RSAC was last held in person in 2020. Despite rising concerns about the coronavirus and several vendors pulling out, 36,000 participants attended in person that year. The organization reported afterward that two Exabeam employees who attended tested positive for the coronavirus. Several other attendees also reported testing positive on social media. The exact number of cases tied to the event is unknown.

RSA Conference is the first major tech conference in 2022 to change its dates. Security conference BSidesSF, which generally takes place around the same time in San Francisco, said on Twitter it was evaluating moving its dates to match RSAC. Despite a number of high-profile vendors canceling in-person exhibits, the Consumer Technology Association’s CES is still scheduled to take place from Jan. 5-8 in Las Vegas.

RSAC 2022 was originally scheduled for Feb. 7-10. This week’s decision was met with support from leaders in the cybersecurity community.

Wendy Nather, Head of Advisory CISOs at Cisco:

Jake Williams, CTO Rendition Security:

Government

• FBI officials say AI is bolstering adversaries, emphasizing need to focus on cyber basics, patching

• Feds accuse China of ‘systematic’ distillation of U.S. AI models

• CIA’s Michael Ellis says cyber intelligence is changing how the agency operates

• The G7 tells industry to hurry up and prep for post-quantum encryption

Technology

• European parliament members call for slowdown of Serbia’s EU entry over spyware use

• FCC proposes public scorecard to rate telecoms on anti-robocall efforts

• Pegasus, NoviSpy variant spyware found on devices of Serbian activists

• Wyden seeks upgraded NSA security guidance on commercial VPN use

Threats

• Microsoft discloses two actively exploited zero-days among 974 vulnerabilities

• Russian national extradited to US for alleged involvement in bank-account takeover scheme

• Attackers exploit zero-days in consistently besieged SonicWall product

• Jail time for Maine child in 764 marks turning point in federal law enforcement

Policy

• Whistleblower says USPS deploying new, ‘untested’ IT systems governing mail-in ballots

• ‘Watershed 250’ test program in Texas looks to private sector for water cybersecurity help

• Former sexual abuse victims say Grok used their images, videos to train deepfake capabilities

• Cyber threats nudge Trump to sign executive order on foreign equipment in U.S. energy infrastructure