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Jen Easterly, the new CEO of RSA Conference, is bringing a message of hope and collaboration to the cybersecurity industry. With her background in the military and experience as the director of CISA, she believes that AI can help solve complex problems and create a more secure digital world.
Jen Easterly, new CEO of RSA Conference, promotes a message of hope and collaboration in addressing complex cybersecurity challenges. Easterly believes AI can help write more secure code and transform legacy systems into more resilient ones. She acknowledges legitimate concerns about AI and cybersecurity but focuses on finding solutions to mitigate new risks. Ransomware attacks, data breaches, and phishing emails are significant challenges the industry faces, but Easterly believes they can be solved with the right tools and technologies. Easterly emphasizes trust as a crucial currency in cybersecurity, highlighting the importance of nonpartisan and collaborative approaches to tackling complex problems.
Jen Easterly, the new CEO of RSA Conference, has been making waves in the cybersecurity industry with her relentless optimism and vision for a more secure digital world. With nearly four years of experience as the director of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Easterly has developed a reputation for her ability to bring people together and tackle complex problems.
Easterly's background is rooted in the military, where she served for 20 years and was one of four military service members to stand up the first-ever US Cyber Command. This experience gave her a unique perspective on the importance of technology in modern warfare and its potential to save lives.
After leaving CISA, Easterly took on the role of CEO at RSA Conference, an organization that brings together cybersecurity professionals, policymakers, and industry leaders to discuss and address emerging threats. Under her leadership, the conference has seen a significant increase in attendance, with 43,000 people coming to San Francisco for this year's event.
Easterly's message is one of hope and collaboration. She believes that the convergence of cyber and AI technologies presents a unique opportunity for the cybersecurity community to come together and find solutions to complex problems. "We're at this inflection point where cyber and AI are now inextricably linked," she said during an interview with The Register. "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's vision is for a world where cybersecurity is not just about patching vulnerabilities and responding to threats, but about creating a more secure and resilient digital ecosystem. She believes that this can be achieved through the use of increasingly powerful AI tools to help write more secure code and transform legacy code into more secure systems.
However, Easterly also acknowledges the legitimate concerns surrounding AI and cybersecurity. "We're already seeing threat actors use AI to do hyper-tailored, hyper-customized, hyper-personalized phishing emails that are harder and harder to detect," she said. But rather than panicking about new risks, Easterly is focused on finding solutions.
"AI can help us write more secure code," she explained. "We're already seeing the ability of AI to find and fix flaws in the code that's being written. We're also seeing the ability to use AI to transform and refactor legacy code into much more secure systems."
Easterly's optimism is not misplaced. The cybersecurity industry is facing significant challenges, from ransomware attacks to data breaches. But she believes that with the right tools and technologies, these problems can be solved.
"One of the most important currencies in cybersecurity is trust," Easterly said. "We have to be in the room. We have to have those conversations to build that trust."
The private sector plays a critical role in cybersecurity, owning and operating the vast majority of critical infrastructure. Easterly believes that this means they are essential players in the conversation about cybersecurity.
"I welcome the federal government with open arms," she said. "They'll continue to play a very important role. But until that happens, we're standing in."
Easterly's vision for a brighter future is not just about technology; it's also about people coming together to tackle complex problems. She believes that this requires a nonpartisan and non-political approach to cybersecurity.
"This is a serious conference for serious people who want to come together and solve the toughest challenges," she said. "The most important currency in cybersecurity is trust. I'm not going to speak for the federal government, but at the end of the day, it's important to recognize that you have to be in the room."
Related Information:
https://www.ethicalhackingnews.com/articles/Jen-Easterly-Cybersecuritys-Relentless-Optimist-Sees-a-Brighter-Future-ehn.shtml
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2026/03/25/jen_easterly_interview/
https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/25/jen_easterly_interview/
https://www.cybersecuritydive.com/news/cisa-nsa-fbi-rsac-conference-jen-easterly/810482/
Published: Wed Mar 25 14:55:46 2026 by llama3.2 3B Q4_K_M
