Transformation from the Inside Out, Understanding Relationships Leads the Way at RSAC 2022

The past two years have left an indelible mark on society.  We have had to adapt and change in ways that were unheard of pre-pandemic.  We learned new ways of existing, living, and working with each other, and for many, scrambled to change our habits, schedules, and support systems. These changes are not going away anytime soon, and the result: our lifestyles and businesses have transformed.

Digital transformation went from a board strategy to an immediate reality to support remote working for employees, customers, and partners. The number of applications, devices, users and data that needed to be secured, from data center to cloud to edge computing and back again multiplied exponentially. From an attack surface perspective, securing the interconnected nature of the enterprise—the relationships and dependencies—is now the transformation initiative. This pivot to approach security from the inside out will take center stage at this year’s RSA Conference (RSAC).

The web of relationships and dependencies, overlaid on top of the massive identity sprawl many companies are experiencing across different geographies and constituents, has created a myriad of exploitation paths internally and externally. The result is an increased attack surface that cannot be protected only with traditional perimeter focused security methodologies. Complete TRANSFORMATION not only of security architecture, but of overall cyber thinking, is critical to combat the sophisticated attacks we have been living through the past couple of years.  The attacks are utilizing these paths to inflict the largest blast radius possible, reaching other high-value assets through both horizontal and vertical relationships, inside the perimeter in ways we have not experienced. 

Many organizations cobbled together a temporary security solution out of immediate necessity to support rapid remote culture shifts. Now it’s time to make the necessary changes to scale and extend. The theme this year of RSAC 2022, ‘Transformation’, is perfect, and will hopefully lead to better understanding of the TRANSFORMATION we all need to undergo. To shift from being reactive to proactive; from perimeter-based to relationship-based; and, above all, leverage collaboration with other technology providers to achieve the soon-to-be required results.

My goal at this year’s RSAC is to better understand how this web of relationships and dependencies will impact the TRANSFORMATION initiatives (such as cyber resiliency) companies will be focusing on. Also, to understand from a customer perspective how transparency within the digital estate not only assists in the orchestration  and enforcement of security controls, but also underpins many transformational security initiatives, including the much buzzed about Zero Trust.  

From a vArmour perspective, I am looking forward to helping my peers understand how to utilize our Relationship Cloud platform to discover, observe and control the web of relationships and dependencies for comprehensive protection of data, applications, and workloads. In addition I am looking forward to collaborating with key partners such as Microsoft, Crowdstrike and Tanium to ensure we continue to focus on security transformation success in the long term. 

Meet us at RSAC 2022 to learn more. We are hosting 1:1 executive briefings June 6-9 at the Southside Spirit House with our executive team. Register here to schedule a time slot. If you are a current vArmour customer, please contact your account manager.

vArmour will also present at the Microsoft Intelligent Security Association (MISA) booth #6059, from 3-4 pm @ Moscone Center on Tuesday, June 7. Stop by and learn how our participation in the ecosystem improves the cybersecurity of Microsoft customers and view our use case demos! 

But first, on Monday June 6, join us at the largest concert during the conference, the Security Leaders Concert featuring Neon Trees at The Grand, starting at 8 p.m. Registration required, register here.

I am looking forward to an exciting event and connecting with all of you!

Find me on LinkedIn @katekuehn; and Twitter @KateKuehn and @0trustbaby.