RSA Conference 2010: 4 Survival Tips

For the newcomer, the RSA security conference can be overwhelming. Follow these four strategies to get the most from it.

By Bill Brenner, Senior Editor

February 25, 2010 — CSO —

The first time I attended the RSA Conference in 2005, I was overwhelmed.

The show floor is massive and once you go in it can be hard to find the right door out. Vendor salespeople swamp you. The Tuesday-morning keynotes can be an assault on the eyes, with speakers standing in front of massive uber-resolution screens.

That year, Microsoft's Bill Gates announced the coming of Internet Explorer 7 and people were just starting to talk about spyware and a data security breach at Choicepoint.

The keynotes were all newsworthy -- or so it seemed at the time.

Fast-forward to 2010. Some major players in the industry are scheduled to give talks, including Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt and FBI Director Robert Mueller. But with Gates no longer delivering a Tuesday-morning keynote, the news-breaking potential isn't what it used to be. The exhibit floor is sure to be loud and crowded as always, with some vendors pulling various stunts to draw people in to their booths. Some examples are in this slideshow I made last year.

All that might sound like criticism, but it's not meant as such. There's still a ton of value to get out of this show. You just have to know where to look.

So let's see if I can help you sort this out with a few tips:

1. The vendor keynotes are not what they used to be
No disrespect toward the vendor keynoters, but I've found their talks less noteworthy in recent years. Sure, it's good to hear their take on the latest industry trends, but if you're an IT practitioner with years of experience you already know what they're going to tell you.

The mob has moved its criminal operations online? You knew that. A data breach awaits the company who fails to take security seriously? You knew that, too. You also already knew that a data breach can happen if you DO take security seriously.

The high-level government speakers are a bit more interesting. Last year, the main Wednesday talk was from Melissa Hathaway, then-acting senior director for cyberspace for the National Security and Homeland Security Councils. This year, Schmidt will speak closer to lunchtime Tuesday while Napolitano speaks Wednesday afternoon and Mueller speaks Thursday.

Cybersecurity isn't a subject we've heard much about from Napolitano and Mueller, so they are worth checking out, in my view. The problem is that the size of the stage and auditorium and the rapid succession of keynotes doesn't allow for the give and take between speaker and attendees that would make these more valuable. But sometimes you have to take what you can get.

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