Network Security, Vulnerability Management

Jason Healey, director of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council

Known for speaking and attending at conferences around the country, Jason Healey hopes that a lot of constructive discussions will come out of the RSA Conference this month in San Francisco.


What events will you be attending this year in San Francisco? 

I'll be attending the RSA Conference.

What influenced your decision? 

As a director of a think tank program, I have to be influential, to have an impact on policy and practice. RSA is one of the central points of my year, as all my colleagues, friends, funders and potential funders are all in one place at one time.  I also attend Black Hat and DEFCON for somewhat opposite reasons: few or none of the other think tanks attend, as they've never worked technical issues or incident response.

What do you anticipate the most as far as conference talks this year? 

The keynotes of course and the more technical tracks, as its been too many years since I was at the CERT level responding to incidents myself. 

Given the RSA/NSA news, what kind of impact do you feel this will have on the show this year? 

I still anticipate a full conference and even more spirited discussion than normal.  If the RSA conference lives up to its possibility, the discussion will move the issue forward. Hopefully the conference won't see just each side taking sides and talking past one another.  If we're to save the internet, we need to think more creatively than just banging away on the same ground of “privacy versus security.”  I hope we begin to collectively realizing that our generation will be the one to lose the internet unless we get our act together and act collectively, at scale to make defense better than offense, everywhere.

What are some pressing concerns/threats in the industry that you feel will be discussed this year? 

Of course, there will be a lot of discussion on the role of governments.  Governments may want to talk public-private partnerships, but the rest of us need to know if governments are more keen to protect us or compete to become the most efficient predators themselves.

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