The event steadily grew and in 1993 it attracted more than 200 attendees.: 24 Known for many years as the RSA Data Security Conference, it eventually became just the RSA Conference. Over time the conference grew more business-oriented with an older demographic and more vendors, which led to competitive issues for a time in the 1990s; European competitors to RSA Security sometimes could not get a booth, so they hired people to pass out flyers at the RSA conference encouraging attendees to visit them at hotels nearby. In 1995 the conference criticized the Clipper Chip. If implemented, the chip would have given the U.S. government direct access to evidence on telecommunications devices with the chip installed. The conference put up posters with "Sink Clipper" in big letters. By 1997 the conference had grown to 2,500 attendees. The first European RSA Conference took place in 2000 and started with just 5 tracks.
The first RSA Conference in the Asia-Pacific was introduced in 2013. This was followed by the inaugural United Arab Emirates conference two years later. In 2015 the conference added a clause to exhibitor contracts effectively prohibiting "booth babes" by requiring professional attire on the exhibitor floor. The policy was implemented in response to feedback that booth babes made the conference feel unprofessional. Fortune Magazine called the widespread practice of having booth babes at professional conferences "outdated" and unwelcoming to female attendees. The following year, the RSA conference was focused on the FBI–Apple encryption dispute, regarding attempts by the government to gain access to iPhones containing evidence in criminal investigations.
In 2020, RSA Conference and its parent company, RSA Security, were acquired by several investors in a $2 billion deal. Two years later, RSA Security sold a majority interest in RSA Conference to private equity firm Crosspoint Capital Partners. RSA Security sold its remaining interest in the RSA Conference events business to other investors in 2022.
As of 2025 RSA Conference has been rebranded to "RSAC Conference".
The RSA Conference is an international conference series on IT security that takes place in the United States, Europe, Asia/Japan, and the United Arab Emirates. It also provides internet safety education for consumers and children, a security scholar program for IT security students, and operates award programs typically bestowed at conferences. For example, one award is the Innovation Sandbox contest, which involves ten startups that present their technology to a panel of judges.
The 2017 conference in the U.S. had 15 keynotes, 700 speakers, 500 sessions, and 550 exhibitors. An analysis of session keywords at the conference suggest that early conferences were focused on cryptography and commerce, but the topical focus of conferences transitioned to cloud and cybersecurity in the early 2000s. Each conference has a theme, a practice that began in 1995. Additionally, there are typically one or two IT security topics that the conference organizers pick to focus on each year. Speaking positions at the RSA conference are highly competitive, with thousands of submissions for a few hundred speaking positions.
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