While Preaching Security, RSA Conference Becomes Hotbed for COVID-19
Last week’s RSA Conference returned to San Francisco to inform and educate attendees on all things cybersecurity. But when Paul Grabow attended, he could sense a threat was lurking out in the open on the show floor: the risk of catching COVID-19.
“By and large, there wasn’t a whole lot of masking going on,” he said of the event, which was held entirely indoors. “If there was a viral load, then there was a pretty good amount of time I was exposed to it.”
Grabow, a cybersecurity consultant, is now among the growing number of attendees, who’ve reported catching COVID-19 at the show. The cases are causing many to wonder if the RSA Conference became a superspreader event, given that 26,000 people attended.
On social media, some conference-goers have been sharing(Opens in a new window) pictures of their positive COVID tests after attending the show. Among them is Chris Nickerson, CEO of cybersecurity firm Lares. On Monday, he posted(Opens in a new window) a photo of his positive COVID test on Twitter with the words “Thanks for the cool swag” in a nod to catching the virus at RSA.
In response, four other users replied with photos of their positive COVID tests. Nickerson told us he now wishes the RSA Conference had done more to prevent the spread of the virus.
“Better airflow, mask mandates, higher requirements for vendors throwing parties around the event,” he said. “While I was masked regularly, it was not all the time. So I take ownership of my choices there. I do feel that RSA could have been a bit more diligent in reminding people that masks save lives.”
The security researcher, who goes by the name Ray Redacted, also posted an informal poll(Opens in a new window) on Twitter, asking conference-goers if they caught the
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