RSA Conference 2021, a virtual experience is in full swing! It was a jam-packed day of content, networking, demos, and learning so here’s what you might have missed:

One of Tuesday’s keynote highlights was Spanning the Globe: The State of the Industry from the People Who Run It. Notable participants shared insights and learnings on priorities, surprises, and “ah ha” moments. Marene Allison, CISO, Johnson & Johnson, shared this advice with the audience, “CISOs are in their role for a reason. We’re operational minded, we need to be intel minded, we need to be technical minded, but bringing it all together. Being a CISO is not for the faint of heart.”

Anne Neuberger, Deputy National Security Advisor for Cyber and Emerging Technology, hosted Cybersecurity as a National Imperative where she framed the Biden Administration’s approach to safeguarding U.S. cybersecurity and modernizing cybersecurity defenses. Anne explained that, "Bolstering the nation’s cybersecurity, safeguarding our critical infrastructure, and renewing America’s advantages broadly are fundamental to the Biden Administration’s commitment to our national security strategy. And continued partnership with you, the private sector, is critical to achieving these objectives.”

In another dynamic session, CSA CISO Summit: Executive Strategies for the Cloud-Centric Enterprise, participants explored the critical strategies that enterprises must have in place to succeed. The summit kicked off with Leadership in the Cybersecurity Age: A Fireside Chat with Former Secretary of Defense (2017 – 2018), General James Mattis. Gen. Mattis advised, “CEOs and those of you attending this summit, you cannot rest on minimal standards right now, because the standards that are in place are not sufficient. That’s the bottom line. You have to create standards that when you go to bed you can believe that those will hold against the threats that are so clear.”

Lastly, the Sandbox sessions are in full swing, offering immersive, hands-on educational learning for all attendees.

Wednesday: A Preview Snapshot

Keynotes: Another reminder a list of this year’s keynotes can be found on the full agenda. Here’s a few you won’t want to miss on Wednesday:

• Securing Today’s Unbound Enterprise – 8:00am PT – Manny Rivelo, CEO of Forcepoint, and Georgie Barrat, Technology Journalist, Broadcaster, and Presenter, will share insights into today’s emerging Unbound Enterprise that pushes controls to the user, understands the edge, and thrives across diverse ecosystems.
• It’s Time for Data Contact Tracing – 8:20am PT – Doug Merritt, CEO of Splunk, shares how Data Contact Tracing can help identify breaches sooner and remediate them more effectively.
• The Internet is Small: Own Your Attack Surface Before Somebody Else – 8:35am PT – Dr. Tim Junio, SVP, Cortex at Palo Alto Networks, will address how security teams must become resilient as digital transformation expanded the external attack surface.
• SolarWinds: What Really Happened? – 8:50am PT – For the first time, Sudhakar Ramakrishna, President and CEO of SolarWinds, will share his unique insights into the historical supply chain attack that rattled both private and public sectors, including the “who, what and how” of the attack.
• Cyberspace Solarium Commission – Next Steps – 3:40pm PT – Commission Representatives will discuss their progress and lay out a list of priorities headed into the 117th Congress. They will also discuss the government's response to recent cyber incidents and share lessons learned and policy implications in their wake.

Announcing This Year’s RSAC Innovation Sandbox Contest Winner – 9:20am - 10:45am PT – Come cheer on (virtually) the top 10 finalists. Each entrepreneur gets three minutes to share their story and why their solution will make the most impact in cybersecurity over the next 12 months. Since the start of the contest sixteen years ago, the top 10 finalists have collectively seen over 50 acquisitions and received $8.2 billion in financing.

DevOps Connect – 8:00am – 4:00pm PT – Join Christopher Krebs, Former Director of the Department of Homeland’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Alan Shimel, founder and editor-in-chief at MediaOps for a fireside chat focusing on Securing the Cloud Native World. Attendees will also have the opportunity to engage in a real-time Q&A.

Announcing RSAC Marketplace – Be sure to keep an eye out tomorrow for the launch of RSAC Marketplace, an online resource that will connect you to a wide range of leading cybersecurity vendors, associations and service providers--and it’s available for free whenever you need it.

Here’s to another exciting day at RSA Conference 2021!

P.S. Remember, all the traditional session content is available OnDemand!