One-sentence headline summary

Former CISA director and current RSAC CEO Jen Easterly advocates for the return of federal officials to the RSA Conference while dismissing panic surrounding AI-driven cyber threats.

Key points

• Jen Easterly, former head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), is leading her first RSA Conference as CEO with 43,000 attendees in San Francisco.
• Easterly argues that AI does not introduce novel cyber risks but instead offers tools to improve software quality and reduce reliance on constant patching.
• The current conference faces a notable absence of federal speakers from agencies like the FBI, NSA, and CISA following recent leadership changes.
• Easterly maintains that the cybersecurity industry must prioritize software quality to transform ransomware from a multi-trillion-dollar business into a rare anomaly.
• The CEO emphasized that private sector collaboration remains essential, as private companies own and operate the majority of global critical infrastructure.

Easterly’s push to reintegrate federal agencies into the RSA Conference highlights the ongoing tension between government security mandates and private industry collaboration. Her optimistic outlook on AI suggests a potential shift in how the cybersecurity sector approaches long-term software resilience and risk management.