Another successful RSA Conference (RSAC). Four days at the Moscone Center this year among 41,000+ attendees (!!) and 650 vendors gave us plenty of insights, intelligence, and conversation starters.
Now that we’ve had time to digest it all, let’s dive into our three major takeaways from RSAC 2024 – and how LastPass can help solve for the cybersecurity challenges and trends that lie ahead.
AI is omnipresent
While many vendors were eager to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) in their booth messaging and pitches, we couldn’t help but wonder if those attendees enamored with this new tech fully understood its security implications.
Many of these AI platforms, like ChatGPT, require businesses to “feed” the tool with information about the company to capture the brand voice and tone. Without strict oversight, employees may be inadvertently supplying the AI tool with sensitive company information that could put the business at risk.
AI isn’t just making teams more efficient and agile; it’s also emboldening cyber criminals by making their phishing attempts more sophisticated – and harder to catch. This dynamic content (or adaptive content), influenced by Gen AI, can be tailored to the individual recipient and include natural-sounding copy that doesn’t raise flags for phishing attacks. Over half (52.5%) of business report that social engineering attacks are using more dynamic content in emails influenced by Gen AI.
LastPass pro tip: Use a password manager, like LastPass, to combat phishing attacks made all the more believable by AI. A password manager generates complex passwords, prevents password reuse, and guards employees from fraudulent sites by only auto filling on verified domains.
Integration is important but so is security posture
As distributed workforces become permanent, people are interested in combining preferred point solutions, selecting products and vendors that can solve several needs – and are equipped to integrate. Additionally, in a very aggressively changing and dangerous threat landscape, more and more IT leaders and teams are being challenged to do more with less.
However, in a recent future of work study, Gartner states that “the ultimate outcome of adopting a hybrid workspace security strategy must be to improve security posture, rather than consolidating vendors or reducing spend.”
LastPass pro tip: Complement your tech stack with LastPass and integrate your identity provider (IdP) to streamline IT burden, while securing your business at an affordable price. Your budget and resources might be strapped, but your security doesn’t have to be.
Shadow IT also looms large
Another prevalent trend and talking point at RSAC 2024? Shadow IT.
Proficient at using lots of apps and devices in their personal lives, employees assume this can neatly translate to their work environment – your business. Often accidental and without mal intent, it still poses a huge risk as employees go rogue with unauthorized app usage (SaaS sprawl). In fact, 80% of employees admit to using applications without IT approval while 70% of organizations have experienced a compromise via Shadow IT.
Even though an overwhelming number of employees admit to using Shadow IT, they also understand the enormous risk of introducing new technologies without their IT team’s approval (to the tune of 79% of employees). And just like with passwords, Shadow IT’s risks can only be mitigated so much by education and awareness when cognitive dissonance abounds.
LastPass pro tip: Secure every credential with LastPass and gain increased visibility and control through policies, dashboards, reporting and audits – to ensure employees are accessing appropriate sites and apps through secure authentication and logins.
In a mercurial cyber landscape – AI and Shadow IT making the most waves this year at RSAC 2024 – and businesses challenged to do more with less, securing every access point (unauthorized or not) is mission critical to success and security. The easiest way to do this is by giving your employees the right tools that meet the needs of tech natives and novices alike. Protect your business with LastPass. Start your free trial today.
