By the end of today’s general sessions I was starting to think about whether or not there was something that connects all of the sessions I’ve sat in on so far this week.  There are a few obvious answers.  Pretty much all of the sessions have been related to, or at least mentioned, the cloud.  As I noted in my Day 2 blog, Stuxnet and WikiLeaks seem to get mentioned in just about every session, as well.  But I was trying to find something a little less tangible, maybe a little less “in your face.” 

It finally came to me during today’s keynote panel address on “Cyber war, Cyber security, and the Challenges Ahead.”  The panel of security heavyweights included Michael Chertoff, Mike McConnell, and Bruce Schneier .  Collaboration is one of the themes that seem to have run across sessions and keynote addresses.  Sharing of ideas, sharing of information, sharing of logs, threats and vulnerability information has all been mentioned so far this week.  Bruce Schneier helped drive home the point when he compared the public and private sectors, and how private companies have to evolve and collaborate in order for security to succeed going forward.  The US military has collaborated for years.  In his example he talked about the thousands of companies and contractors it takes to build an aircraft carrier.  That level of collaboration simply hasn’t existed in the private sector. 

In order for us to ensure that security can keep up with the exponentially growing amount of data we keep on computers and, in turn, on the Internet, companies are going to have to figure out a way to work together.  From session to session, and from different panel discussions and keynote addresses, it’s apparent that collaboration—from sharing information about that latest worm or cyber-attack, to more standardization of event logs, to open source code—has to be considered in order for security to keep up with the speed of the exploding Internet universe. 

Keep following me on Twitter @simply_security, there’s still two days left.