RSAC Panel: Public-Private Partnerships Critical Against China's Typhoons — But Government Speakers All Cancelled

At RSAC 2026, a panel titled "Inside the Hunt for China's Typhoons" was meant to feature FBI and NSA representatives discussing joint operations to disrupt Beijing's cyber operations. Every government speaker cancelled, leaving an empty chair on stage alongside private-sector panelists.

The Panel

• Original billing: "Behind-the-scenes" look at FBI, NSA, and private industry's joint operations
• Reality: Four private-sector panelists + one literal empty chair
• Federal agencies: FBI, NSA, and CISA all skipped RSAC 2026

The China Typhoon Threat

• Volt Typhoon: Targeting US critical infrastructure (utility operators' networks)
• Salt Typhoon: Intrusions into telecommunications networks
• Flax Typhoon: FBI confronted and burned down a 260,000-device botnet
• Most intrusions happened on private-sector infrastructure

The Public-Private Gap

Dave Scott (EY, former FBI Cyber Operations Branch): During Scattered Spider (2023), the FBI proposed pulling private and public sectors into one room for real-time sharing. "Proposed is the key word. This real-time collab did not happen."

The government was "waiting for legal process and then waiting for the approvals and everything else to share that information" while private-sector intelligence analysts were moving fast.

Voice Phishing Escalation

Phone calls are now the second most common method for initial access and the top tactic for breaking into cloud environments — yet the real-time collaboration proposed in 2023 still hasn't materialized.

Private Sector Role

Wendi Whitmore (Palo Alto Networks): "When you look at Volt and Salt Typhoon, it really required the victims stepping forward and sharing intelligence. It required the law firms and the incident response firms."

Source: The Register (RSAC 2026)