The organization hosts the premier annual gathering of cybersecurity experts, vendors, and researchers, which began in 1991 as a small cryptography event hosted by corporate security giant RSA. RSAC is now a separate company with events and initiatives throughout the year, but its conference in San Francisco is still its flagship offering, with thousands of attendees each spring.
“The conference is the crown jewel, but now we are also a year-round global membership entity for cyber professionals,” Easterly told WIRED. “We’re internationalizing more deeply and I’m excited to expand the Innovation Sandbox, early-stage expo and startup ecosystem, and it’s really about supporting the next generation of AI-powered cyber companies and producing high-quality software by design innovators. In many ways we are living through an inflection point.”
Easterly’s appointment as CEO certainly comes at a moment of great change for the cybersecurity industry. AI tools are beginning to enhance the capabilities of both attackers and defenders, and security experts have a critical role in securing AI platforms along with the infrastructure that supports services. At the same time, the Trump administration’s drastic changes to U.S. foreign and domestic policy look set to transform private sector cybersecurity and public-private partnerships in North America and around the world.
Easterly emphasizes that it is lifelong independent and that cyber security transcends all administrations and borders. He served multiple appointments in the U.S. military, worked for the National Security Agency, helped establish the U.S. Cyber Command within the Defense Department, and spent nearly five years in charge of Morgan Stanley’s global cybersecurity before joining CISA in 2021.
Building trust and collaboration have been some of the most important priorities of his career. But the Trump administration did not ask him to remain at CISA during the transition at the end of 2024, and President Donald Trump has largely criticized the election integrity work being done by CISA under his and his predecessor Chris Krebs’ leadership. Separately, in July, the Army directed the Military Academy at West Point to rescind an employment offer it had made to Robert F. Kennedy of the academy’s Department of Social Sciences. McDermott gave Easterly to become the distinguished speaker.
Easterly says, “I do not look at this opportunity for leadership at RSAC through a lens of fear and speculation; I look at it with the same continued optimism and faith in the power of community that has been at the heart of my service, public and private.” “Cybersecurity is not a political endeavor, RSAC is certainly not a political organization, and I am not a political person. I am a lifelong independent.”
Easterly says the RSA Conference will continue to welcome insights and collaboration from officials from all governments as part of its efforts to facilitate community building and cooperation in cybersecurity. And she says there’s “magic” that can happen when the security community has supportive forums to come together.
She adds, “Security and resilience are issues that affect every country, every industry, every citizen.” “And the strength of RSAC is that it brings together operators and technologists and innovators and researchers and policy makers across administrations and borders because it is based on expertise and mission, not politics.”
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