3/10/2020 Two People Who Attended Cyber Event Contract Coronavirus - Bloomberg

Prognosis

Two People Who Attended Cyber Event

Contract Coronavirus
By Jeran Wittenstein and Kartikay Mehrotra
March 10, 2020, 1:04 PM CDT
Updated on March 10, 2020, 4:41 PM CDT

Employees of California firm showed symptoms after conference

RSA gathering is annual cybersecurity event in San Francisco

The Warning Signs of Coronavirus

The Warning Signs of Coronavirus

Two cybersecurity company employees who attended an annual industry conference last month
in San Francisco have tested positive for the coronavirus. At least one is seriously ill with
respiratory issues.

One of the workers at Exabeam Inc. is a 45-year-old engineer who began experiencing symptoms
when he returned home to Connecticut from California on Feb. 28 after attending the RSA
cybersecurity conference, his wife said in an email. His condition deteriorated the following
week and he was hospitalized in respiratory distress on March 6, she said. The man was placed
into a medically induced coma and is now on a ventilator in “guarded condition.”

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The individual is predisposed for pneumonia due to an underlying heart condition, his wife said.
Bloomberg is withholding the man’s name to protect his privacy. The second person, who is
unidentified, also worked at Exabeam and attended RSA, the Foster City, California-based
company said Tuesday in a statement.

“While we cannot confirm whether they contracted COVID 19 prior to, at or after the
conference, if you came into contact with our staff, please be vigilant in monitoring yourself for
symptoms,” Exabeam said. The company said it instituted a work-at-home policy for its offices in
Foster City and Atlanta.

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The annual RSA Conference in San Francisco is among the leading cybersecurity events in North
America, rivaled only by BlackHat in Las Vegas. The event was held Feb. 24 to Feb. 28 and
conference organizers said it drew more than 36,000 participants, including dozens of keynote
presentations in auditoriums packed with company executives, government officials and
journalists.

Concerns about the novel coronavirus were heightened ahead of this year’s conference. Hand-
sanitizer dispensers were placed prominently throughout RSA venues and many exhibitors
opted to bump elbows instead of shake hands. Many privately expressed surprise the event
wasn’t canceled.

The conference said 14 sponsors and exhibitors withdrew in advance and several companies also
pulled out of the gathering, including AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and International
Business Machines Corp.

Included in RSA’s daily emails to attendees during the conference were reminders that
organizers were closely monitoring the virus situation. RSA also advised conference goers to
follow World Health Organization guidelines to protect themselves from infection.
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3/10/2020 Two People Who Attended Cyber Event Contract Coronavirus - Bloomberg

RSA issued a statement confirming the news that two conference attendees had been diagnosed
with the virus, but didn’t immediately explain if it would be investigating their interactions.

“Currently, there is not a known direct link or official governing body communicating back to
RSA Conference that these individuals had symptoms at Conference or attended during the
incubation period,” RSA organizers said in the statement.

A representative of the San Francisco Department of Public Health said she had no information
about the cases.

More than 117,000 cases of the illness have been reported worldwide since its origin in the
Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of December. The viral disease has spread to 104 countries and
regions and thus far caused 3,978 deaths, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

California, Washington and New York have more than 100 confirmed cases of the disease, the
most in the U.S, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

(Adds San Francisco health department comment in 11th paragraph.)

In this article
1462292D
RSA CONFERENCE
Private Company

1006169D
EXABEAM INC
Private Company

T
AT&T INC
35.85 USD +1.16 +3.34%

VZ
VERIZON COMMUNIC
56.52 USD +0.69 +1.24%

IBM
IBM
124.77 USD +6.96 +5.91%

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