IT Shows Ends With a Bang

• By Ralph C. Jensen
• Mar 06, 2012

The 2012 version of the RSA conference ended the same way it began, busy and full of promise. It seemed to me the aisles were full of attendees and booth staff members were all busy explaining their IT security products.

Here’s what I picked up from some of the sessions and events.

The only way to create a secure online ecosystem is through the collaboration of private enterprises and the public. What is needed is a means to put away people who pose a threat to communities as well as the private sector.

Phyllis Schneck, vice president and CTO of the public sector at McAfee said, “We have to disrupt the profit model of the cybercriminal. Imagine what you could do with all the money in the world and no legal boundaries.”

That is what the cyber world is up against, and the vast majority of the public doesn’t know it or understand that.

Take heart. The National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance, a non-profit group that works between private enterprises and authorities is working closely with the FBI and sharing intelligence as well as malware strategies.

The efforts have led to hundreds of arrests, and close to $2 billion in savings in the last two years. There is still more work to do and much more information to be shared between the private sector and law enforcement. The biggest asset to managing risk also is the least informed -- the general public.

It may take a while for the general public to wrap their heads around this, but it will happen, and once the knowledge is understood and security becomes an important part of daily computing, cybercriminals will have their hands full.

No doubt they will have to step up their game, and when they do, the public will tolerate their actions far less than now.