Jen Easterly, cybersecurity's 'relentless optimist,' hopes feds come back to RSAC next year

Summary

RSAC 2026 "Everybody feels massive FOMO if they don't get to RSAC," Jen Easterly says. To be fair, she has a vested interest in saying this. After serving as the director of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) agency for nearly four years - during which time she was a regular at the RSA Conference, speaking on panels and giving keynotes - in January, she signed on as the chief executive of RSAC. Her first conference at the helm of the organization has brought 43,000 people to San Francisco, and happens during what Easterly describes as the "most exciting time to be in cyber - and I've been in a long time." "We're at this inflection point where cyber and AI are now inextricably linked," she told The Register during an interview at the conference. "I don't think we could have said that last year, I don't think I could have said that when I was at CISA developing our AI action plan, but we're now at a point where you cannot meaningfully have and deploy cyber capabilities without integrating AI," Easterly said. "That convergence is reshaping everything across the digital ecosystem, and at the heart of that convergence is community. It's the community of security practitioners and operators and technologists and leaders and builders and investors and entrepreneurs that are coming together to figure out: How do we make the most of this technology in this community and create a more secure and resilient digital world - which has sort of been the bumper sticker for my life." It's also why she wanted the RSAC CEO gig, she told us. A few things about Easterly. She speaks in full paragraphs. She served 20 years in the US Army and was one of four military service members to stand up the first-ever US Cyber Command. She describes herself as a "relentless optimist," but even if she didn't say this, you'd get the idea. Easterly stays on message, and uses phrases like "we don't have a cyber security problem, we have a software quality problem," and "make ...