RSAC Conference 2025: AI and quantum complicate security

RSAC Conference 2025 has been full on, with cybersecurity experts from all over the world descending on San Francisco to share trends, data, and announcements.

This year, ITPro has been providing both remote and on the ground coverage from the event, across talks covering topics such as AI security and threat actor methodology.

In this episode, Jane speaks to Rory about some of his RSAC coverage and key takeaways from the event.

Highlights

“This isn't new territory – we were having a discussion earlier and saying that quantum cryptography has been a point of discussion at RSA for many years. It's one of those situations where you have to prepare for it, even though it might be very far in the future, and you can't easily predict when a working quantum computer is going to become an actual threat.”

“Cisco has apparently found that when you fine tune AI models, it can actually increase the risk of the models themselves. So Cisco research found that tailoring models, say to your unique organizational style, data, can make them three times more susceptible to jail breaks and up to 22 times more likely to output harmful responses.”

“All of this is to say, amidst everything we're hearing about, threat actors using AI and threat actors focusing on new methodologies, the number one thing is still profit-driven groups, that are just people. They have Discords, they have Telegram channels, they message each other, they make major mistakes.”

Footnotes

• RSAC Conference 2025 was a sobering reminder of the challenges facing cybersecurity professionals
• RSAC Conference Day One: Vibe Is 'All In' on AI for Security
• “Governance is an irreplaceable role”: Microsoft Security VP on why diversity and sector expertise will keep security workers relevant in the age of agentic AI
• RSAC Conference day two: A focus on what attackers are doing
• "There needs to be an order of magnitude more effort"": AI security experts call for focused evaluation of frontier models and agentic systems
• Cyber defenders need to remember their adversaries are human, says Trellix research head
• RSAC Conference day three: using AI to do more with less and facing new attack techniques
• "China has almost doubled their aggression in cyber’: Kevin Mandia and Nicole Perlroth warn organizations aren’t waking up to growing APT threats

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