RSA Conference 2020: Biggest Takeaways

Phew! What a week. We’re still recovering from the whirlwind that was RSA Conference 2020.

If you were at RSA last week too, you know what we mean! RSA was wild. We had a blast despite very real Coronavirus fears! While we were there, San Francisco announced a state of emergency over the Coronavirus. Despite concerns, we all made it back home safe and sound.

So, what was our RSA experience like?

Coronavirus

We came face-to-face with COVID-19 (Coronavirus) this last week at RSA. Anyone at the conference showing symptoms was taken away to a local hospital where they could be diagnosed and treated.

While some of our team fell sick, no one tested positive for COVID-19 thankfully.

We were happy to see how seriously the RSA conference took the Coronavirus. Security shouldn’t just be a digital focus. This year’s theme was the “Human Element,” so it only fit that they secure the people attending the conference from possible infection. RSA took this threat seriously and created an environment we all felt safe in.

There was more vendor-branded hand sanitizer than we’ve ever seen before. And we were thankful for it!

We’re keeping an eye on what Coronavirus will mean to us and our clients. There have unfortunately already been a few deaths in the states, where a large majority of our customers are. Many employers are moving to a work-from-home model as the virus spreads.

As a remote-work company ourselves, we can’t stress the importance of this move enough! It will help healthy people stay healthy. And if you need help securing your employees’ devices as they work from home during this period, we have some help docs to guide you.

Vendor partnerships

One of the biggest positives of the RSA conference was getting to speak with other vendors. We discovered what other teams are up to, and how we might work together to collaborate on better security.

We believe the future of cybersecurity is in integrations and vendor partnerships. Your security tools should work together to give you visibility and control. We’re always working to improve DNSFilter, taking customer feedback into consideration, and one way we can improve is to put the right partners in place.

There were surprising opportunities that came out of nowhere. We ran into companies in the security space we hadn’t heard of before that we were delighted to talk to. We also had conversations about engaging in or expanding on partnerships that were already in the works.

As we cement new partnerships, we’ll be sure to announce them and let our customers know what it means for them.

Cybersecurity, the government, and you

Jokes aside, government and policy were some of the biggest topics at RSA this year. Government employees from Germany and the U.S. gave a presentation on collaboration in cybersecurity. Despite being almost two years removed from the enforcement of GDPR, it showed up in a lot of sessions, including one that centered on the Data Protection Officer role.

This is an election year, and over the past four years there has been a lot of talk about external government interference in U.S. elections. This was front and center in the panel discussion “Enemies at the Gate: Protecting American Democracy in 2020.” It addressed foreign misinformation mitigation, the role AI (and technology as a whole) plays in auditing election results and preventing voter fraud, and even the recent app failure at the Iowa caucuses.

All of these sessions and discussions shed light on the rising importance of government IT security. Our votes and other personal records are part of the government’s digital systems, and local, state, and federal government bodies need to ensure they are protected. That includes DNS security.

It will be interesting to see how 2020 unfolds and what solutions CISA and other agencies put in place using the technology currently available.

What else did DNSFilter do at RSA?

DNSFilter RSA Conference 2020 highlights

One of the things we always enjoy at conferences is meeting our customers in person. We ran into several MSPs at RSA who shared with us how excited they are about roaming protection and our recent speed improvements.

On Thursday, we sponsored the RSA pub crawl! Nothing is more fun than passing out free drinks to customers, vendors, and other attendees. Cheers to everyone we got to share a drink with!

Plenty of these large conferences don’t deliver when it comes to the expectations they set. But RSA really delivered. We’ve already committed to going again in 2021.

If you missed out on the conference and want to to get in touch, drop us a line.

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