A Ridiculously Unofficial and Totally Biased Guide to RSAC 2022

It's almost here: RSAC 2022. The cybersecurity industry's largest event hasn't happened in person since 2020, but that will change next week. This is my humble attempt to share some of the highlights that shouldn't be missed as well as resources to help you decide how to make the most of the conference.

Breaking Down the RSA Conference

I think of the RSA Conference in 5 distinct buckets:

1. Training Sessions - Like CISSP training courses.
2. Seminars and Sessions - Talks to share new research, keynotes, and opportunities to learn from experts on a topic.
3. Networking Opportunities and Parties - Both scheduled networking opportunities as well as vendor activities outside the official schedule.
4. Programs - A catchall for things like the Innovation Sandbox, Sandbox, Media Hub, and more.
5. The Expo Hall - Where you'll find a massive number of vendor booths.

The Vendor Expo Strategy

There are 470 vendors spread between the North Expo, South Expo, and Early Stage Expo. You can see more details about each exhibitor in the RSAC Marketplace.

With that many vendors, if you spent 5 minutes at each booth, it would take more than 39 hours to visit them all. Unfortunately, the expo hall is only open a total of 23 hours. So you'll need to plan your visits or use a time machine.         

In lieu of time travel, a few tips to decide which booths to visit.

1. Visit the Axonius booth. Why? I work at Axonius and have absolutely zero problem plugging our booth. We will be hosting interviews in our live broadcasting studio (see schedule below), and we have great giveaways.
2. Search Twitter and LinkedIn - Using the #rsac and #rsac2022 hashtags you'll see who has the best swag, and which vendors people are talking about.
3. Search for Interests Here - Using the sponsor page on the conference site, you can sort by topics, subtopics, and keywords to narrow down your list of vendors by what you care about.

Daily Highlights

While the RSAC Website has detailed information on every session, vendor, and networking opportunity, here are a few highlights for each day.

Sunday, June 5, 2022

Registration - Sunday is the first day of training sessions and registration. Registration is at Moscone South from 7:30 AM - 7:00 PM PT.

Hotel Shuttles - It appears that hotel shuttles are not available on Sunday, so you can find a list of public transportation options here.

Parties - A good list of RSA 2022 parties is available here. Some highlights for Sunday:

• 6PM–9:30PM - Faraday Security - Location TBD after approval
• 6PM–1AM - United Cybersecurity Alliance Ally of the Year Awards - Monroe, 473 Broadway
• 6:30PM–9:30PM - Prisma Cloud, BridgeCrew & GitHub - BSides Afterparty and RSAC Pregame - The Playroom, Hotel Zetta, 55 5th St.

Monday, June 6, 2022

Registration - Registration is at Moscone South from 7:30 AM - 7:00 PM PT.

Sessions - All day, with the following blocks:

• 8:30 - 9:20 AM
• 9:40 - 10:30 AM
• 10:50 - 11:40 AM
• 1:10 - 2:00 PM
• 2:10 - 3:10 PM

Programs

RSAC Innovation Sandbox - 12:00 - 3:00 PM PT - Moscone South - Esplanade - The RSAC Innovation Sandbox is the single most important cybersecurity startup competition, awarding the most innovative startup of the year. This is a MUST SEE.

Expo Hall Hours - 5:00 - 7:00 PM - Welcome Reception and Expo Hall Open Hours

Hotel Shuttles - You can find the full hotel shuttle schedule here, but at a high level:

• AM Peak Service (every 15 minutes) - 7:00 am - 10:00 am
• Mid-Day Service (every 30 minutes) - 10:00 am - 4:30 pm
• PM Peak Service (every 15 minutes) - 4:30 pm - 8:00 pm

Parties - A good list of RSA 2022 parties is available here. Some highlights for Monday:

• 5PM–7PM - RSAC Welcome Reception - Expo Halls
• 6:30PM– Happy Hour with Guidepoint Security and Deepwatch - Temple Nightclub, 540 Howard Street.
• 7PM - BigID Data After Dark Welcome Party - Mourad, 140 New Montgomery St #1

Tuesday, June 7, 2022

Sessions - All day, with the following blocks:

• 8:30 - 9:20 AM
• 9:40 - 10:30 AM
• 1:15 - 2:05 PM
• 2:25 - 3:15 PM

Programs

1. RSAC Sandbox - 8:30 am - 3:15 PM, 4:45 PM - 6:00 PM - Six different sandboxes with dozens of interactive experiences such as?Capture the Flag?and live demos.?

Expo Hall Hours - 10:00 am - 6:00 PM

Shameless Axonius Plugs

On June 7th at the Axonius booth - booth 943, South Expo Hall, we will be interviewing and live streaming the following:

• 10:00 AM - 10:45 AM - Chris and Ron Eddings - Live Episode of Hacker Valley Studio from RSA
• 11:00 AM - 11:45 AM - Interview with Roland Cloutier, Global CISO, TikTok

1:00 PM - 2:00 PM - Interview with Simone Biles and Amy Bream

• 2:00 - 2:45 PM - Interview with Ashish Rajan, Head of Security at PageUp, Host of the Cloud Security Podcast
• 3:00 - 3:45 PM - Interview with Rafael Nunez, Senior Solutions Architect at Sirius Computer Solutions

Hotel Shuttles - You can find the full hotel shuttle schedule here, but at a high level:

• AM Peak Service (every 15 minutes) - 6:30 am - 10:00 am
• Mid-Day Service (every 30 minutes) - 10:00 am - 4:30 pm
• PM Peak Service (every 15 minutes) - 4:30 pm - 7:00 pm

Parties - A good list of RSA 2022 parties is available here. Some highlights for Tuesday.

• 4:45PM–6:55PM - RSAC Women's Networking Reception
• 4:45PM–6:55PM - CyBEER Ops Reception - Expo Hall
• 6PM–7:30PM - Mandiant Taco Tuesday - SPUR Urban Center, 654 Mission St

Wednesday, June 8, 2022

Sessions - All day, with the following blocks:

• 8:30 - 9:20 AM
• 9:40 - 10:30 AM
• 1:15 - 2:05 PM
• 2:25 - 3:15 PM

Programs

1. RSAC Sandbox - 8:30 am - 4:30 PM - Six different sandboxes with dozens of interactive experiences such as?Capture the Flag?and live demos.?
2. Early Stage Expo - 8:30 am - 4:30 PM - Moscone South, Level 2 - The Early Stage Expo is an innovation space dedicated to promoting up-and-comers in the industry.

Shameless Axonius Plugs

On June 8th at the Axonius booth - booth 943, South Expo Hall, we will be interviewing and live streaming the following:

• 10:00 AM - 10:45 AM - Chris and Ron Eddings - Live Episode of Hacker Valley Studio from RSA

11:00 AM - 11:45 AM - Interview with Jen Easterly, Director, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency

• 12:00 PM - 12:45 PM - Interview with Gianna Whitver and Maria Velasquez, Cybersecurity Marketing Society
• 1:00 - 1:45 PM - Interview with Joe Uchill, Senior Reporter, SC Media
• 3:00 - 3:45 PM - Interview with Dave Bittner, Producer and Host, Cyberwire

Hotel Shuttles - You can find the full hotel shuttle schedule here, but at a high level:

• AM Peak Service (every 15 minutes) - 7:30 am - 10:00 am
• Mid-Day Service (every 30 minutes) - 10:00 am - 4:30 pm
• PM Peak Service (every 15 minutes) - 4:30 pm - 7:00 pm

Parties - A good list of RSA 2022 parties is available here. Some highlights for Wednesday:

• 8:30AM–6PM- Lightspin Purple Cloud Summit Contemporary Jewish Museum 736 Mission St
• 4:30PM–6PM - RSAC Expo Pub Crawl - Expo Hall
• 6:30PM–9:30PM CrowdStrike Badder than the Bad Guy Party - City View at Metreon 135 4th St #4000

Thursday, June 9, 2022

Sessions- All day, with the following blocks:

• 8:30 - 9:20 AM
• 9:40 - 10:30 AM
• 10:50 - 11:40 AM
• 1:00 - 1:50 PM
• 2:10 - 3:00 PM

Programs

1. RSAC Sandbox - 9:30 am - 3:00 PM - Six different sandboxes with dozens of interactive experiences such as?Capture the Flag?and live demos.?
2. Early Stage Expo - 9:30 am - 3:00 PM - Moscone South, Level 2 - The Early Stage Expo is an innovation space dedicated to promoting up-and-comers in the industry.

Hotel Shuttles - You can find the full hotel shuttle schedule here, but at a high level:

• AM Peak Service (every 15 minutes) - 7:00 am - 10:00 am
• Mid-Day Service (every 30 minutes) - 10:00 am - 2:00 pm
• PM Peak Service (every 15 minutes) - 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Parties - A good list of RSA 2022 parties is available here. Some highlights for Thursday:

• 8AM–12PM - MorganFranklin + Cyware - The Cyber Lounge - Coffee, Conversation, Demos, & Chance to Win $1mm - The Cyber Lounge on 4th 145 4th St
• 6PM–10PM - Gigamon - RSAC 2022 Party with StrikeReady - Pied Piper 2 New Montgomery St

I can't wait to meet friends I haven't seen in years. There's nothing like being in person. Let me know if you'd like to meet up during the show!

Nate