Groundhog Day is Over

In my last entry, I posted my crazy-advanced {{Security Breach = Bad}} equation and sarcastically noted that the results of our survey, along with a super computer and a team of data scientists and behavioral economists, arrived at the “Bad” conclusion associated with Security Breach liabilities.  My sarcasm in that post was the end product of a suspicion that had been growing with alarming frequency over the last few years.  Thankfully, that suspicion is now, after having attended the largest Cybersecurity conference in the world – RSA Conference in San Francisco, history.

In going to RSAC this year, I fully expected a series of “Groundhog Day” moments… the same series of Ned Ryersons talking about the same series of product features that somehow incorporate the word Cloud at every turn.  The only real difference being that I wasn’t in Punxsutawney, PA… I was at the Mascone Center in San Francisco… and the elapsed time would be measured in days… when it really felt like YEARS.  Years I tell ya.

I had become convinced that most of the security industry had stalled and appeared to be chasing either the ghosts of threat vectors past and / or was missing the charge to the 3rd Platform.  Either way, I was absolutely convinced that the vertical was stuck in the halcyon days of the 2nd platform and we were all missing the altered landscape brought to us by Big Data.

“I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” – Wayne Gretzky

So what’s different?  How did my conversion come to pass?

I know I’ll sound like I was rooting for the home team, but a lot of it was Art Coviello’s opening keynote.  For the first time in a long time, we had an industry leader basically telling us to grow up, move forward and take action with new systems and applications of intelligence-based security.  And he backed it up by challenging governments around the world to adopt the principles and standards needed to more effectively address information security needs.  It sounded an awful lot to me like we have a leader who gets the need to apply policy and control to the 3rd Platform.

I’ll admit that the listener hears what they want to hear… or maybe I’m hearing what I want to hear.  But there were several vendors on the floor at Mascone that not only agree with Art, they happen to be rolling out product that is designed to drive to the heart of the dialogue he’s leading – “We don’t need more security, we need better security”.  Which means we need better products, better services… better solutions.  Dare I say, we need more predictive capabilities and less reactive capabilities… especially when the reaction happens AFTER making headlines in the Wall Street Journal.

As my learned colleague, professor Burgess, told me “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” – Wayne Gretzky