Hot Topics to Keep an Eye On at RSA Conference 2023

With RSA Conference 2023 upon us, we asked a handful of Netskope experts what they expect to hear about or are excited to hear more about at the show. Here’s what they have on their mind: 

“For those that attend, the focus will be on consolidation and getting the most out of investments they have made. The meetings will likely be more focused and aligned to specific projects. I expect zero trust and XDR to be the big security themes people are talking about. I also expect to hear more about data security and the phrase “data security posture management” (DSPM) more.” -Andy Horwitz, VP, Business Development

“There will be an uptick in discussion and conversation regarding supply chain risk in the form of common topics like, how do we strengthen the cyber hygiene and capabilities of small businesses who are often suppliers to large enterprises? Other topics include what we can learn about digging deeper into service providers and software that we presume is ‘enterprise grade’ and assume is less risky.” -Nate Smolenski, Head of Cyber Intelligence Strategy

“I hope to learn more about recent advances in AI ethics. Even though I embrace technological advancement, I worry that this technology might be advancing more rapidly than society can adequately absorb. Additionally, last year SASE was all about bits, bytes, buzzwords, and acronyms. This year, SASE should be all about business value, and I hope to see some interesting ideas emerge—in other words, the ideas that are worthy of attention.” -Steve Riley, Field CTO

“What I am looking forward to most about RSAC is hearing from our customers about how their journey to SSE and securing their clouds is going.” -Ben Saitz, Chief Customer Officer

“I’m not necessarily excited about it, but I fully expect AI to run amok as a theme, given the huge amount of buzz that *GPT generative AI has received in the mainstream press, the investment done by MSFT, and the arms race to release more chat/search interfaces. I expect security vendors to show how they are making generative AI a more mainstream part of their interface, such as showing “here’s how we use AI to suggest remediation recommended actions,” and continue to emphasize how the continued trend of machine learning can be practical for anomaly or behavioral detection.” -Jenko Hwong, Principal Engineer

“Some of the key Business Value themes in the IT market, and specifically the SASE arena, that I anticipate to be on the minds of RSA attendees include: vendor consolidation driven by single vendor SASE; aligning business outcomes to technical solutions; CFOs getting more involved in SaaS/TCV decisions than before; and Financial IT and FinOps gaining traction on unsupervised cloud spend.” -Dave Klippel, VP, Business Value Services

“Risk management, cloud security and data security will be amongst the top topics at RSAC, which should not come as a surprise. New trends I expect to hear about at the conference are the legal angles, which includes cyber law as well as cybersecurity and legal functions joining forces, and the increased emphasis on geopolitical perspective. I also expect the theme of zero trust to be present in all flavours, from the strategic angle to architectural principles to individual pieces of the tech stack. I expect many conversations at RSAC will center on doing more with less and practical tips/examples for navigating complexity of regulations and technology stacks and solving challenges of transitioning from legacy infrastructure. ” -Ilona Simpson, CIO EMEA

“I’m sure there will be a great deal of chatter on how to handle ChatGPT.  For me, ChatGPT is just a new threat vector and turning to the fundamentals of security to put the proper people, process and technology controls in place. With the economic downturn organizations are requesting security leadership to do more with less. Threats are increasing, and we need to focus on how we can deliver more value from our people and technology investments.  If you would like to hear some tips and tricks for managing a security program during an economic downturn come see Robert Schuetter and I on Thursday April 27, 2:20pm for “Taking Advantage of a Recession to Push a Program to World Class.”

We are also seeing a significant uptick in merger and acquisition activity and expect to see that increase for the next couple of years as we see consolidation in the market. Managing security during an M&A can either be a career maker or a disaster. M&As are highly visible to the management team and if mistakes are made it can cost in the millions!  Hear from two experienced CISO’s, Arvin Bansal and I, on “Avoiding the Four Biggest Mistakes That Will Blow Up an M&A” on Wednesday April 26th at 1:15 pm. ” -James Christiansen, VP, Security Transformation

To stay up to date with everything Netskope will have going on at RSAC 2023, you can check out our RSA page here.