Was #RSAC 2025 the GOAT? #NHI in the #RSA Hallways

Originally published on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/rsac-2025-goat-nhi-rsa-hallways-jonathan-sander-gc5de/

There were 3 things that stood out to me at RSA this year. Spectacle, the ubiquity of NHIs, and truly great conversations. Let’s break them down.

Let me break the suspense. No, I’m not going to argue that this year’s RSA conference was the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time). However, it was the first one with actual goats on the show floor (as far as I’m aware). So I couldn’t resist the joke.

But this does relate to my first observation - the sheer spectacle of the show. It was there on the show floor with the goats. It was also there outside the show at the many, many side events. Not sure about you, but I got the feeling there was just as much happening in side events this year as there was in the packed Moscone. From big things like the B Sides con to the smaller things like Astrix’s own NHI Lounge, it seemed like every venue in walking distance from Moscone was all about cybersecurity.

The second thing that stood out was how NHI was everywhere. It wasn’t just that every player who does NHI was at the show. It was also that many players who have never really done it were also talking about it. Astrix is the first player to focus on NHI, and has led the way the whole time. Seeing the others talking about it says one thing: it’s clear that NHI is a huge need because everyone is feeling the need to get into the game. That’s amazing.

The last thing is confirmation of something I’ve thought for a long time: you’re not going to get the real fun at RSA if you don’t get yourself down to the show floor. Every year I’m able to snag a booth staff badge which lets you in when the floor is technically closed. I do the same thing. Before anyone is allowed to get down there as an attendee, I put on my big noise-cancelling headphones and walk the floor from one end to the other. It’s my way to absorb the whole feeling of what people are being asked to focus on. AI is the big winner this year, of course. Every year I get some good input this way.

The other thing that the show floor gives me is the opportunity to have amazing conversations. Talking to people who have never heard of our solutions is always revealing. You think you know how to tell someone a story, and testing that over and over shows you what you didn’t think of. It’s easy to imagine everyone knows about the threats of uncontrolled NHI, but it’s simply not true.

There’s also those rare conversations that bring together people who probably never would have met otherwise. I spent nearly 45 minutes talking with the CEO of an AI startup and an IAM specialist from one of the world’s largest tech companies. We talked about how LLMs and AI in general may and may not affect applications and how they are secured. Astrix’s message about NHI being a key component of securing AI Agents was the starting point, but we quickly got into how LLMs can be used as replacements for older, more brittle heuristics that were the heart of business logic. It would take more words that I have to spare here to got through it all, but I left the conversation energized.

Yet again, RSA was worth the trip. See you on the show floor next year.