For decades, RSAC (formerly the RSA Conference) has been the cybersecurity industry's flagship gathering—a place where defenders, innovators, and leaders from around the world converge to share insights, swap war stories, and calibrate their strategies in the face of a constantly evolving threat landscape. But what happens when the world's most important cybersecurity conversations only happen once a year?

That’s the question RSAC set out to answer with its newest—and perhaps most ambitious—initiative: the launch of a year-round digital platform and companion mobile app, designed to extend the power and spirit of the RSAC beyond San Francisco and into the daily lives of cybersecurity professionals everywhere.

I spoke with RSAC executive chair and CEO Hugh Thompson about this reimagining of the role RSAC plays for the cybersecurity industry. In his words, "It’s not just a product launch—it’s a calling."

Cybersecurity Doesn’t Wait for Conference Season

Cybersecurity is no longer a slow-burn, siloed discipline. It's a global, real-time struggle against agile adversaries who move fast, adapt quickly, and collaborate in ways that defenders rarely do.

When I talked to Thompson, I noted how this shift for RSAC reminds me of other evolutions in cybersecurity. I am dating myself—but, once upon a time, malware signatures were only updated monthly or weekly, and vulnerability scans were conducted on a quarterly basis. In response to a threat landscape that never sleeps, the cybersecurity industry has adapted over time to be a continuous, ongoing discipline rather than a periodic scheduled task.

Today’s threats emerge, mutate, and spread across organizations and borders in days—sometimes hours. And while RSAC has long been a cornerstone for education, innovation, and community, Thompson knows once a year isn’t enough.

“You can’t get the kind of constant calibration you need once a year,” Thompson said. “Think about how fast AI entered the enterprise—people were using it before policies were even written.”

According to Thompson, it’s a sentiment shared by many longtime RSAC attendees: the conference is invaluable, but the learning and connection need to continue long after the expo floor closes.

Having attended RSAC myself most years since 2008, I can understand the sentiment. Everyone descends on San Francisco and we all learn things and collaborate together, but the world of threats and defense doesn’t stop when we leave. The information we get could be outdated or irrelevant 3 months later, but the next RSAC would still be 9 months away.

I asked Bruce Schneier, a well-known security technologist and guru of cybersecurity who needs no introduction for the RSAC audience, for his thoughts on this RSAC initiative. Schneier does not mince words. “If the app works, when, you know some University of Indiana professor gets ‘disappeared,’ we go on the app and chat about it. Right? That's what success looks like.”

Continuous, Community-Powered Cyber Resilience

The new RSAC platform is RSAC’s answer to that need. Built over 18 months with input from more than 1,000 cybersecurity professionals, the platform reimagines how the community connects, learns, and collaborates—every day of the year.

Available on the web and iOS, with both free and professional tiers, the platform offers:

  • Daily curated news briefs to help users stay ahead of industry trends
  • A robust AI-powered Learning Hub with educational content, summaries, and training modules
  • A growing Content Library of RSAC session recordings and curated resources
  • Secure, encrypted messaging and group chats for peer collaboration
  • A built-in AI assistant to help users surface relevant content and streamline research

And that’s just the beginning. The roadmap includes professional certification programs, real-time breaking news alerts, virtual “war rooms” for active incident collaboration, and enhanced group functionality for deeper discussions and mentorship.

Behind the Curtain

I had the chance to get a firsthand look at the RSAC app during a live demo with Darren Shou, CSO at RSAC—and I’ve also had early access to explore the experience for myself.

The first thing that stood out is how intuitive the interface is. It doesn't feel like a repurposed news aggregator or a clunky enterprise portal. It feels like it was built by people who understand the cadence and chaos of life in cybersecurity.

The AI-powered content engine is especially promising. One standout feature lets users access RSAC session videos and instantly generate summarized decks, complete with citations and links to related materials. It’s the kind of tool you appreciate when you have five minutes before a meeting and need to sound like you spent an hour digesting a panel discussion.

Another feature that resonated with me is the use of “breakpoints” in recorded content—essentially smart timestamps that guide you to the parts of a talk that matter most based on your interest or urgency. Combine that with peer-driven insights and curated resources, and it’s easy to see how this could become a go-to utility for professionals under pressure.

What excites me most, though, is the potential. During the demo, Darren emphasized the team’s commitment to co-developing with the community. RSAC indicated that it’s not a static product—it’s a living platform that will evolve based on real-world feedback from real-world defenders. That spirit of iteration gives me some confidence this won’t be just another digital watering hole—it could be the connective tissue cybersecurity has been missing.

More Than a Platform—A Digital Home for Cybersecurity

What makes this platform unique isn’t just its features—it’s the spirit behind it. Thompson describes cybersecurity as a “calling,” often a thankless one, where practitioners are expected to deliver bad news, stop the unstoppable, and do it all behind the scenes.

At RSAC, that shared sense of mission has always been palpable—and the platform is designed to capture that feeling and make it portable.

“There’s something powerful about how willing cybersecurity professionals are to share, even across company lines. That doesn’t happen in most parts of business,” Thompson said. “We want to bottle that collaboration and make it accessible year-round.”

There is a challenging balance for managing a platform like this, though, and avoiding the tragic fate of Twitter (now X). While there is camaraderie and collaboration in the cybersecurity community, there are also polarizing views and trolls. RSAC will need to have policies in place—and enforce them—to thread the needle between stifling free expression and collaboration and allowing vitriol to turn the “community” into a cesspool.

Schneier stressed that the more the powers that be try to police it, the worse it will get. “This is one of those really hard things that, you know, you can't force community. And if you try, it backfires on you.”

From Main Stage to Mission Control

The platform isn’t just for seasoned professionals. Students will be welcomed in for free, and RSAC plans to release gamified educational tools to make complex topics like reverse engineering and buffer overflows fun and accessible.

The RSAC app and platform won’t replace the magic of the in-person conference. But it’s not meant to. It’s meant to keep the conversation going. To keep the community connected. To support the mission of cybersecurity professionals not just in March or April, but in August and November and every day in between.

“In a world where attackers never sleep,” Thompson said, “our collaboration can’t take a break either.”