RSA: Juniper Security Chief Blasts Apathy

Wednesday at RSA, Juniper Network's security honcho urged security professionals to be bolder in their outrage for what is happening to their information, and to take risks on approaches that challenge current conventions.

"Our privacy is being invaded, our IP is being stolen, the public trust is at an all-time low, and the attack on our information is outrageous," said Nawaf Bitar, senior VP and general manager of the security business unit at Juniper. "But you know what? I don't think we give a damn. I'm fed up with talking about outrage."

In his keynote at the show, Bitar pointed out that American society in general suffers from what he calls First World Outrage, in which people show only token signs of caring about circumstances that they truly think little about and act not at all to change. Compared to extreme acts of outrage and resistance such as Tibetan self-immolation and the Tiananmen Square protests, First World Outrage looks meaningless.

[For more from RSA, see RSA Conference 2014: Complete Coverage.]

"'Liking' a cause on Facebook is not outrage. Retweeting a link is not outrage. Posting a bad review is not outrage. Not showing up at a conference is not outrage," he said, specifically taking a swipe at those boycotting the RSA Conference over RSA's cooperation with the NSA.

Most people don't take true action from outrage unless family or income is threatened by circumstances, he told the audience. But he believes a third major concern should spur more of us to true action: threats to our information.

Read the rest of this article on Dark Reading.