An RSAC panel hosted by CyberScoop featured the directors of two major US agencies, NSA's Cybersecurity Directorate (led by Anne Neuberger) and the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (led by Christopher Krebs). The organizations see their roles and missions as complementary, and as offering a good scope for collaboration. Work against the Russian influence operations and other information operations that targeted the 2016 elections and that have since continued spurred more effective information sharing, and Microsoft's January patches provided an important opportunity for the two agencies to reach out to the public on an urgent matter of online security.

What's our sense of the conference this year? Well-attended, perhaps a bit more subdued than we've seen in previous years. Some of the sense of reserve is no doubt due to concerns about COVID-19: hand-sanitizer stations are much in evidence, and people are less apt to shake hands. We're also getting a sense that people see small businesses, the mom-and-pops, as underserved by the sector. See the links below for a range of reports and announcements from the conference, and listen to this week's CyberWire Daily Podcasts for updates from San Francisco.

Inspired by Cisco's launch of its SecureX platform at RSAC, and especially by the news that SecureX's internal name had been "Thanos," MarketWatch wonders what superheroes exemplify the spirit of various cybersecurity companies. (Technically Thanos is a supervillain, but leave that aside.) They confined themselves to the Marvel Universe, so DC superheroes need not apply. Iron Man was the superhero most companies chose as their muse and role model, followed by Captains America and Marvel, with Sue Storm, Vision, Shuri, Dr. Strange, and Ant Man (the Hank Pym version) also showing. To the industry's shame, not a one of them chose Dr. Charles Xavier, the Silver Surfer (an obvious choice, one would think, for a browser security vendor), or the Ancient One...sad! For our part we call J. Jonah Jameson--he's whatcha call high energy.