RSAC Goes Year-Round: Cybersecurity’s Biggest Conference Evolves into a Global Community Platform

With a cybersecurity AI co-pilot, secure messaging, and original research from a powerhouse R&D team, RSAC is positioning itself as more than a conference—it wants to be cybersecurity’s digital HQ.

For decades, RSA Conference has been the cybersecurity industry’s version of a pilgrimage—a once-a-year convergence of hackers, CISOs, researchers, and security vendors packed into San Francisco’s Moscone Center. But what if the conversations that define cybersecurity didn’t have to stop after the conference badges came off?

Today, RSA Conference LLC (RSAC) is launching something new: RSAC Community Platform, a membership-based digital hub designed to extend the RSAC experience across all 52 weeks of the year. It’s a strategic evolution—and an ambitious attempt to cement RSAC as not just an event, but a year-round ecosystem for the global cybersecurity community.

“We are on a mission to help the cybersecurity community thrive year-round,” said Dr. Hugh Thompson, Executive Chairman of RSAC. “We are elated to now extend the learning, engagement, and ability to connect to the other 51 weeks of the year… This platform will improve cybersecurity for all.”

From Annual Event to Persistent Community

The RSAC Community Platform launches with a broad set of tools aimed at keeping cyber professionals connected, informed, and supported—long after they leave the conference hall. Features include:

Cybersecurity AI Co-Pilot – A generative AI assistant trained on decades of RSAC presentations, tutorials, and expert discussions, ready to help members solve problems and surface insights.
Library – A centralized content hub with videos, podcasts, webcasts, and exclusive professional-tier research, all curated for security professionals.
Groups & Secure Chat – Collaborative spaces for members to discuss hot-button issues and securely message others in the field without risking signal leakage.
Daily Brief – Curated news summaries for members who want to stay current without sifting through an avalanche of headlines.

Future updates will include access to continuing education, virtual war rooms, certification tools, and even real-time threat intelligence feeds—all wrapped in a secure, browser-based and mobile-first experience.

“There is value there because we are a community,” said Bruce Schneier, Security Technologist and Lecturer at Harvard Kennedy School. “This platform is a place where members… can find resources, ask questions, and connect over important issues. It’s a great place for intelligent, timely conversations to be had.”

RSAC Labs: Cybersecurity’s New Research Engine

But the platform isn’t just about content delivery—it’s about shaping the future of the field. To that end, RSAC is launching RSAC Labs, a research division tasked with publishing original work across cybersecurity, privacy, digital identity, AI/ML, and human factors.

“The experience, knowledge, innovation, and depth the RSAC Labs team brings… will provide tremendous value to our new community-focused vision,” said Dr. Petros Efstathopoulos, VP of R&D and head of RSAC Labs.

The team includes heavyweight researchers like Dr. Chris Gates and Dr. Dan Marino, along with principal researchers whose collective credentials include 90+ patents and publications in elite security journals.

RSAC Labs will also oversee the “Breaking Research” track at the annual conference—now positioned as the proving ground for new ideas from both academia and industry.

Introducing Community-Driven Research

In a parallel effort to better reflect the cybersecurity community’s real-world needs, RSAC has appointed Laura Koetzle as Head of Community Research. A 20-year Forrester Research veteran and longtime RSAC program committee member, Koetzle will lead independent, member-driven research initiatives across the platform.

Her role bridges a critical gap in the cybersecurity space: connecting what researchers study with what frontline defenders are experiencing.

The Bigger Play: Cybersecurity’s Digital Town Square

RSAC is clearly angling for more than just relevance—it’s aiming to become the permanent nerve center of cybersecurity dialogue. And the timing couldn’t be better.

Cybersecurity is no longer confined to technical teams or annual audits. It’s a constant, global, real-time challenge, and the people on the frontlines need something more durable than a once-a-year gathering. RSAC is betting that a dedicated platform—where conversations, connections, and research persist—will fill that void.

Whether the community shows up remains to be seen. But if successful, this move could shift the center of gravity for how the cybersecurity world collaborates, educates, and evolves.

Because in a field where change happens by the hour, one week a year simply isn’t enough anymore.