Are You On Board? 12 Eye-Catching Vendor Signs From The RSA Conference

On The Lookout

The annual RSA Conference is traditionally a place where vendors come loaded for bear with their latest marketing campaign signage. Whether it's established tech vendors, or vendors fresh off an IPO, or even startups flush with venture capital, they're all trying hard (and often loudly) to attract attention to their products.

CRN prowled the RSA 2014 expo hall in San Francisco this week in search of the most glitzy, ambitious and, sometimes, downright bizarre vendor signage. Follow are 12 examples that caught our eye.

No, That's Not Snowden (But Kind Of Looks Like Him)

Novell is using this guy, who bears a resemblance to exiled former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, to get folks interested in Filr, its version of Dropbox for the enterprise.

HP's 'Bad Guy Lair'

At RSA, HP Security is holding a scavenger hunt in which participants are encouraged to think like a bad guy when it comes to breaking into a network. HP, on its website, bills the event as "your chance to show off your ’bad guy’ skills to win fame, notoriety, and a handy book on how to think like a villain."

Inside The 'Bad Guy Lair'

Well, these staffers didn't seem bad at all -- in fact, they were quite cordial to conference attendees who peeked into the lair. But appearances can be deceiving -- isn't that what makes IT security so difficult?

End Of An Era

Intel is getting rid of the McAfee brand, perhaps in response to McAfee co-founder John McAfee's less-than-corporate behavior. So this might have been the last time the McAfee brand adorned Intel's booth at RSA.

Websense's 'Kill Chain'

Websense's Triton technology covers all seven parts of what it called the Advanced Persistent Threat "kill chain." This refers to how miscreants do reconnaissance, lure victims, redirectWweb traffic, execute exploit kits, deploy dropper files, call home and ultimately steal critical data.

Caught In The Act

LynuxWorks, a vendor that does security for embedded systems, used this derelict to show how it's able to stop Advanced Persistent Threats before they’re able to wreak havoc and lead to the pilfering of data.

It's The Cloud, Get It?

CA Technologies knows all about the cloud. And if you doubted that, this cloud tunnel in its RSA booth would have removed all doubt. It's not every day that one gets the opportunity to literally walk through a cloud.

Can't Hack What You Can't See

Unisys was pitching Stealth Solution Suite as a way for organizations that use Windows XP to avoid getting hacked. It works by making data undetectable to unauthorized people inside and outside an organization. Plus, it works with ATMs and point-of-sale systems.

The Art Of War

Proofpoint was quoting Chinese military general Sun Tzu to tout its latest cloud-based threat management, compliance, information archiving and secure communications products. And it was giving away these nifty T-shirts to attendees who wanted to show that they're up to speed on these technologies.

Monster In Your Corner

Veracode, which calls itself "the most powerful application security platform on the planet," was giving away $50 gift cards to booth visitors who played its unique spin wheel game. Sure, this game is pure luck, but application security is all about skill and keeping attackers at bay.

Intelligent Cybersecurity

Cisco had this odd signage at its booth: Apparently this man and woman are getting the latest information about a security breach from their mobile devices. He doesn't seem too concerned, but she seems pretty worried about the ramifications of the breach.

Downtime At RSA

RSA's booth is typically one of the largest, but this was a rare lull in the action, which included prize giveaways and seminars about how the vendor is keeping organizations' valuable data safe from hackers -- and, presumably, anyone else who might be trying to get a hold of it.