As the final day of the RSAC 2026 Conference concluded, Kelly Jackson Higgins, Editor-in-Chief of Dark Reading and VP of Cybersecurity Editorial at Informa TechTarget, joined company colleagues Jamison Cush and Sabrina Polin via Broadcast Alley to talk about what Kelly saw at the event.
During a week focused on discussions surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) as well as the development of cybersecurity and issues within the industry, Kelly's insights highlighted how rapidly AI is changing the cybersecurity world and causing many organizations to struggle to keep up with the increasing sophistication of threat actors.
Kelly spoke about how Informa TechTarget's three cybersecurity brands, Dark Reading, Cybersecurity Dive, and TechTarget SearchSecurity, worked collaboratively and offered a "360 degree" approach to reporting on important topics. Each brand focused on a specific segment of the cybersecurity market. The brands' goal was to provide the information needed for CISOs, SOC managers, risk management personnel, and others to better understand the complexities of the industry.
As the conversation moved forward discussing the changes in the cybersecurity field over the last twenty years, Kelly discussed her perceptions of the industry's growth and problems. In the early days of cybersecurity there were a limited number of vendors and basic threats. Today, the cybersecurity environment has expanded exponentially with thousands of vendors and extremely advanced threats. However, certain long-standing issues persist, including authentication and software vulnerabilities. Kelly stressed the importance of learning from historical events in order to prepare for future trends, especially considering how quickly AI is transforming the cybersecurity landscape.
Live from RSAC 2026: "Our Coverage Is the Best of Three Worlds," Full Transcript
The following is an excerpt from the original article, edited for clarity and brevity by Informa TechTarget's internal AI tool. For a complete review of this conversation, please refer to the full video above.
Jamison Cush: Hi, thank you for joining me for day four and our final day of live streaming coverage from RSAC Conference 2026. My name is Jamison Cush with Informa TechTarget. If you are interested in viewing any of our previous Day Ones, Twos, or Threes from earlier in the week, check out Eye on Tech.
I am being joined again by my colleague Sabrina Polin, Senior Managing Editor from Informa TechTarget. Sabrina, thanks for returning.
Sabrina Polin: Thanks for having me. A little bittersweet. This is our last interview of the week.
JC: And then later today, as soon as this concludes, we'll head down to the Wolverine's room to listen to either a song or dance performance.
SP: And possibly see PT Barnum as well. That could be Hugh Jackman as PT Barnum.
JC: Yes, he is Hugh Jackman.
SP: Maybe you'll spot him if you see a large crowd behind us. We may become famous, but it will not be because of us. It will be because of Hugh Jackman.
JC: Great. That's a nice transition to bring in our celebrity guest. No joke. It is actually our final guest from RSAC Conference 2026. Welcome Kelly Jackson Higgins, Editor-in-Chief of Dark Reading and VP of Cybersecurity Editorial at Informa TechTarget. Kelly, welcome.
Kelly Jackson Higgins: Thank you. I guess they couldn't get Hugh, so I filled in.
JC: RSAC pays quite a bit more for their guests than we do. The show is basically done. We have had several members of your team appear on our show throughout this week. We've talked about AI. People in AI appeared often, as in the line versus in the line. A little politics too. So I wondered what you found interesting or what caught your eye at this year's show.
KJH: To answer your first question, I was mostly in meetings with people. I didn't attend much of the show itself. However, one thing that really impressed me about this year's show was that last year everybody kept saying "Oh, agentic AI is coming and it's going to take a while." Well, it came much sooner than we anticipated. We're in an AI wave right now that has never occurred in this industry in regards to cyber advancement. It's developing at a rate faster than almost every organization is prepared to address. Last year everybody was saying "Well, this is our chance to get ahead of the bad guys." That hasn't happened. Now most companies are trying to play catch-up. And all the vendors are rolling out AI-based tools; they are all slightly different from one another, but you have to figure out what is behind the curtain.
SP: We represent Informa TechTarget here today. We have many experts under our umbrella as well as many colleagues across all areas of this year's show. How do you plan on covering a show like this with multiple incredibly successful brands under Informa TechTarget?
KJH: That's a great question. I'm super proud of this team. We have some of the top journalism and editing talent in the industry, period. We collaborate closely with each other. We maintain separate, unique brand approaches; our overall strategies differ.
However, we collaborate on everything. We meet weekly, and one of the things we have is an enormous Excel sheet detailing who is doing what so we aren't duplicating efforts. And we didn't duplicate efforts. We certainly amplified each other's content. We all had dinner together one night while we were all here. We staggered our arrival and departure times for optimal resource utilization. We met for dinner Tuesday night. It was great because we have great chemistry among the groups, which makes working together even easier. We compete against each other for stories occasionally, but we definitely have mutual respect for each other's approaches and expertise, and we all help each other out.
JC: Good. And it's been roughly a year and a half since the brands were combined. So let's step back a bit and examine how that is working out and how you're addressing the massive topic of cybersecurity generally.
KJH: Similar to everyone else, I was worried that we were going to inadvertently cannibalize each other or replicate effort. Because we have totally different audience approaches and content strategies, we haven't.
You may have a topic that all three brands have covered similarly, but you'll get three totally different types of stories with totally different information from each one.
I prefer to say we provide a 360 degree view of a topic. If you want to read about a subject, you can read a news article from Cybersecurity Dive that's written from a cyber risk perspective for a CISO. You can read a news analysis story from Dark Reading that has secret sauce, as we call it, or SearchSecurity provides very detailed technical information for when you'd want to research a topic and get the entire picture. You truly have access to the best of three worlds with the three brands.
I'm very confident in that feeling; I've experienced it firsthand during the last year and a half.
SP: I need to make a Hannah Montana reference because we recently celebrated the 20-year anniversary of "best of both worlds." I love that you said "the best of three worlds."
JC: I have no clue what you are referring to.
SP: Oh my gosh! Twenty years of Hannah Montana! Anyway, it's been 20 years since Dark Reading existed. Fantastic segue if I do say so myself!
So, that's roughly 20 years of RSA and now RSAC coverage. What's changed between then and now? Are there any commonalities? Any significant differences? I'd like to hear what you've observed within this industry over the last 20 years.
KJH: So 20 years ago... I wasn't attending RSA 20 years ago. When we were first starting out at Dark Reading, we didn't have enough money for events like these in those days. There were barely any security vendors. Most security products were from networking companies that sold security products such as firewalls, and there were antivirus companies. There were virtually nowhere near as many vendors as there are today. It wasn't a huge trade show; it was primarily a conference back then. A little more technical in some aspects. It was definitely RSA: encryption algorithms, that sort of stuff. But it was definitely still an industry gathering. Back when we first started at Dark Reading, there was no firehose of newsworthy items like we have today. We were able to innovate and learn about this emerging industry.
One of my first mandates after being hired, and I was employee number three at the time, one month after launching, was interviewing the pioneers of this industry and seeing what they were doing. These were individuals who literally created this industry through natural progression; it simply evolved naturally.
And those individuals who were creating this new industry were conducting all sorts of experiments, breaking things to find out what broke. They forced vendors to begin taking notice of security vulnerabilities within their software. I loved interviewing them and doing feature articles on how they became part of this industry.
We established strong connections within this industry in its infancy. It was so small that everyone knew everyone. We developed an understanding of the industry in its formative days.
I would say that currently, while there is still that "industry" feel, there are a large number of vendors, approximately 4,000, and networking companies, compared to perhaps only a dozen or so official vendors and networking companies twenty years ago. The sheer scale is a major aspect of the current state of affairs. There were fewer breaches or threats twenty years ago. While there were certainly large breaches occurring during that time period, there are significantly more news events today; in fact, there appear to be non-stop breach announcements.
The current "news firehose" is significantly larger and more is happening today than ever before. There are areas that seem stagnant. That said, I believe that we have made significant advancements in the industry. The more the industry evolves, the higher the bar that threat actors raise to attempt to exploit those advancements.
SP: What is one thing that has remained unchanged over the last twenty years? Something that you feel like we should be moving forward with, but clearly have not?
KJH: Authentication. Passwords are still around. Twenty years ago, we talked about replacing passwords. When passwords are finally gone, they will likely still exist. Biometric and passkey methods of authentication have improved significantly in recent years; however, we have not fully adopted them.
There are still people getting breached due to poor authentication practices. Many users continue to use single-factor authentication. Multifactor authentication is becoming more widely used, but it is not as common as it should be. I believe that this could improve significantly.
In addition, no matter how good your software may be, it will always have vulnerabilities. Thanks to research conducted by developers of operating systems and the subsequent development of vulnerability disclosure programs and secure software development methodologies, operating systems have become more robust. However, there will never be a point at which a system cannot be compromised or exploited in some manner.
JC: I recall speaking with Alissa Torres from SearchSecurity regarding her anecdotal experience with a growing interest in using passkeys instead of passwords. Passkeys offer both convenience and security. I am hopeful that this represents a shift toward a future without passwords.
KJH: I have also been told this. We have not reached that point yet.
JC: Similar to the concept of the "paperless office," this is a promise that has taken decades to fulfill.
Twenty years of coverage helps put the current state of affairs into perspective. Rob Clyde from ISACA was recently interviewed at our event and stated that the impact caused by AI is similar in magnitude to the disruption caused by the internet to cybersecurity. At the end of 2006, the internet was mature enough that its presence was felt throughout all aspects of business. Do you perceive that we are living through unprecedented times in terms of cybersecurity, or simply witnessing the same issues more rapidly and in greater frequency?
KJH: I believe that we are experiencing unprecedented times. I speak with individuals in the industry whom I have worked with for twenty-plus years. They agree that we have never experienced an environment develop so rapidly.
The rate at which technology evolves due to AI simply lends itself to change at a faster pace. Historically, we witnessed trends emerge within certain technologies such as the cloud, and we would observe how they evolved. With AI, this is developing literally overnight. Organizations are struggling to adapt to this level of technological growth.
While we examine the past twenty years of history, I firmly believe that we will benefit from understanding how far we have advanced and how much further we have to go. The more the industry grows and develops, the more aggressive threat actors become.
JC: What about quantum? This seems to be a topic that continues to surface as we discuss topics related to RSAC 2027 and 2028.
KJH: I expect that we will eventually address quantum computing. Currently it is not a primary focus. Quantum computing is developing and will eventually require attention from organizations; however, it is not an urgent matter at present.
SP: I heard Rob Clyde from ISACA refer to quantum as "the boring thing," which is somewhat ironic considering that when you think of the term "quantum," you typically associate it with futuristic concepts. He described it as simply an element that organizations will ultimately need to incorporate into their management processes.
KJH: I completely agree. I think he provided a clear description of what is expected to occur.
SP: Do you feel comfortable providing insight as to what you anticipate will be covered by Informa TechTarget's security coverage in the near future? Additionally, how do you plan on utilizing your platforms to address the extremely dynamic security landscape in the coming years?
KJH: One key element that we are actively increasing our efforts on is ensuring that when we cover emerging technologies, we are effectively conveying information relevant to our readership. Each brand serves slightly different audiences.
We are focusing on that and on how we approach our content. Regardless of whether we are publishing a new technology story or any other type of story, we strive to determine what readers need to know in order to successfully execute their job duties. For instance, if you are creating content intended for a CISO audience, what problems do CISOs need to resolve? What information can we provide that will aid in their success? We continually endeavor to stay aware of our readers' needs. We are increasingly focused on providing content across our three brands. Furthermore, we each publish content related to the same topic, but it is written for distinct audiences. For example, a story may be written for the SOC manager, a story may be written for the CISO, a story may be written for the risk manager, and so on. Our editorial teams meet frequently and discuss technology trends with one another to ensure consistency across all brands and prevent missed coverage opportunities. We constantly ask ourselves what lies ahead and how we can continually evolve as an organisation.
JC: I always enjoy the way Becky Bracken puts it: "Smart people talking to smart people about smart stuff."
KJH: We have access to numerous knowledgeable individuals within this industry. One of my favourite philosophies when interacting with reporters is that everyone in this industry wants to share their expertise. They're passionate about it. Ask your questions! They want to educate you. The more you learn about this field, the better journalist you will be and the better content you will create.
SP: Absolutely!
JC: And SearchSecurity, Dark Reading, and Cybersecurity Dive are great sources for learning about these developments.
SP: Yes!
JC: Well, thanks for spending time with us today, Kelly. We will definitely invite you back for RSAC 2027.
KJH: Thank you for having me! It was fun!
JC: And thank you, Sabrina. Thanks again. And thank you to everyone behind the scenes here at Moscone Center. Avery, Fred, Frank, and MB, and everyone else here, they make us look good. Great job!
