After walking the RSAC Conference 2026 show floor, Anthony Cusimano of Object First came back with sharp observations about AI fatigue, the rising status of backup in security conversations, and what the Ootbi Mini is doing for organizations at the edge. This post-show debrief is a candid look at where the industry's mindset is heading -- and why immutable backup storage is no longer an afterthought.
Anthony Cusimano, Director of Solutions Marketing at Object First, joined Sean Martin and Marco Ciappelli for a post-RSAC Conference 2026 recap -- and his observations from the show floor offer a window into how the security industry is evolving. One of the most telling details came from just outside the Moscone Center, where a company had set up an AI-free zone: a place for attendees to catch their breath from the wall-to-wall AI messaging dominating the event.
That detail points to something bigger. The AI hype cycle that peaked over the past two years is giving way to a more demanding audience. At RSAC Conference 2026, Cusimano heard a different kind of question: not whether a company uses AI, but whether it uses it responsibly -- and whether zero trust principles are baked in. The novelty is gone; accountability is what the floor was asking for.
For Object First, the shift in booth conversations has been even more meaningful. The question that used to greet them -- why is a backup storage company at a security conference? -- has been replaced by relief that they are there at all. Organizations now understand that backup and backup storage sit at the core of resilience and recovery. Cusimano described a floor full of teams thinking proactively, evaluating solutions before a crisis forces the decision.
This is a Brand Highlight. A Brand Highlight is a ~5 minute introductory conversation designed to put a spotlight on the guest and their company. Learn more: https://www.studioc60.com/creation#highlight
GUEST
Anthony Cusimano, Director of Solutions Marketing, Object First
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonycusimano89/
RESOURCES
Object First website: https://objectfirst.com
ITSPmagazine RSAC Conference 2026 coverage: https://www.itspmagazine.com/rsac-2026-conference-san-francisco-usa-cybersecurity-event-infosec-conference-coverage
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KEYWORDS
Anthony Cusimano, Object First, Sean Martin, brand story, brand marketing, marketing podcast, brand highlight, immutable backup storage, ransomware protection, Ootbi, Veeam backup, zero trust, data resilience, RSAC Conference 2026, cybersecurity, backup security, data recovery, edge security, fleet manager
Post-RSAC Conference 2026 Recap: Backup Is Security | A Brand Highlight Conversation with Anthony Cusimano, Director of Solutions Marketing of Object First
[00:00:10] Sean Martin: Marco,
[00:00:11] Marco Ciappelli: Sean, you back,
[00:00:13] Sean Martin: away from the office, uh, for a few days and you forget how, uh, the office systems work for a minute, or I do. Anyway.
[00:00:19] Marco Ciappelli: but you don't forget how to record. Maybe. Maybe it's a different way, but I think we recorded enough on on location at
[00:00:26] Sean Martin: we had a lot of practice. A lot of practice in San
[00:00:29] Marco Ciappelli: was just straight the button on the camera instead of. Instead of some, uh, web cam zoom or whatever we're using, which I don't even know what we're using. You're familiar with that? I'm familiar with the guest. Good to see you again, Anthony.
[00:00:46] Anthony Cusimano: Great to see you both. Happy to be here.
[00:00:48] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah.
[00:00:49] Sean Martin: so good to see you. So good to see you. And I'm, I'm, uh, supporting the authentic, authentic hat, uh, that I, that I scored from you in the booth there in, uh, San Francisco. Thank you for that. Thank you for this.
[00:01:00] Anthony Cusimano: course, I, I don't know how many hundreds of those we gave out, but I'm so glad to see you repping one. I never see people wear 'em. I see people take 'em, so it's
[00:01:07] Sean Martin: you go. There you go. I'm, uh, I'm repping today. Uh, we had a, a great chat on the show floor and, uh, a lot of good stories, a lot of good examples from customers, and yeah, you, you guys are doing a lot of good work. And so today's just about kind of a recap of things you saw, heard, smelled, whatever, tasted during the show, highlights, fun stuff, whatever comes to mind. But before we do that, uh. Worried about you and your role at Object First, and then, uh, the, let's do the elevator pitch for Object first too, just so folks have that handy.
[00:01:45] Anthony Cusimano: Yeah, sure thing. So Anthony Cusimano, I am the Chief evangelist as well as the director for Solutions Marketing here at Object First. And at Object First we deliver an absolutely immutable backup storage solution that is exclusive for Veeam. So much so that Veeam actually acquired us earlier this year, and our whole name of the game is taking Veeam backup data and making it effectively ransomware proof on our storage device that, uh, cannot be hacked. No matter how much your environment is breached,
[00:02:17] Marco Ciappelli: It's impossible.
[00:02:18] Sean Martin: It's
[00:02:19] Anthony Cusimano: it's impossible. We've tried, we've paid the best people, they can't
[00:02:22] Marco Ciappelli: I try to, and I'm not even good at it, but I couldn't do it anyway. Uh, so now that we're back and I, looking back, I mean, we're producing a lot of content. Of course, you know, your, your conversation is, is already out there in the, in the internet somewhere. Um, what, how, how is your feedback, like personally speaking, um, good conversation. Did you learn something like, kind of like, what did you learn today? Or in that wake.
[00:02:52] Anthony Cusimano: When we were talking about this, two things came to mind. So, one kind of funny thing and then one encouraging thing. So the, the funny thing is, is when I was walking around RSAC and even outside of RSAC there, what immediately caught my eye right outside the Moscone Center was, uh, one company had put together an AI free zone. Which is just kind of like a hangout, chill place, but like the whole theme of it was get a break from all of the AI you're being bombarded with at this event and everywhere. And I thought it was kind of funny just coming in, seeing that. But then as I was walking to our booth, going to various, uh, events and engagements, I'd overhear people talking about, oh look, another AI company. Oh look, another AI feature. And like it was. It was everywhere. And I did think it was kind of funny that, you know, just a year ago, two years ago, that was the thing, right? If you didn't have AI in your messaging, your marketing, if you weren't doing it, you were behind the times. And it's kind of like cloud where we got so sick of it. Hearing the word cloud, like this was the first RSAC, where I really felt like, oh, there's almost a little bit of a rebellion here. You can't just put it on your, your marquee people wanna hear what you have to say about it, and they want to, uh, actually, you know, are you doing it responsibly? Are you using AI with zero trust? And that leads right into sort of the thing that encouraged me is years ago when we started doing RSAC, people would swing by our booth and be like, why is a storage company here, specifically a backup storage company? Uh, why are backup companies here? And over the years, the conversations have really turned into. I'm really glad you guys are here because backup and backup storage is synonymous with security. Like you guys are the last bastion of hope, and now we're evaluating all these vendors to see which one of you can actually do the job when it comes to resilience and recovery. And it is so much nicer for me in the booth and having conversations with people when I don't have to explain why we're there and instead explain what we offer and bring to the table. So it was really encouraging on that end, and no one asked me what AI we were incorporating in our solution during that, those conversations. So it was great in that regard too.
[00:05:03] Marco Ciappelli: You know, I, I, I'm gonna make a quick note here, because I've seen the return and of the, the hybrid. Security, right? So no cloud. Cloud on-prem. And you, you just mention and throw that right there. I mean, you can do all the backup that you want, but you actually have a device that you put in the office if we're telling that story. And I encourage people to go listen to the actual full recording where in the end, that box saved the day many times.
[00:05:33] Anthony Cusimano: Exactly it. It is exactly it and it's so nice to get to talk to people who. They're preemptively trying to stop these things from happening versus, well, we got hit last year and now there's a mandate that we need, you know, absolutely immutable storage. Like, I, I don't wanna ever see anyone have to deal with this, so it's great to see the proactivity and there was no shortage of it on the floor at RSAC.
[00:05:57] Sean Martin: And I have to, uh, I have to say, where, where's my ee Mini. The, uh, the little, little desktop tower. I'm, uh, I know I'm obsessed with that, uh, that device, but more, more so just the capabilities of it. And I think the way you describe it is the simplicity of getting things up and running. Um, any highlights, uh, wraps around that, uh, talking to folks?
[00:06:23] Anthony Cusimano: Well, it's, it's really great, uh, one to see smaller businesses as well as. Sort of enterprise businesses that are, that are looking at security for their remote offices, their edge locations, what whatever their smaller little niches and carve outs are. We actually had quite a few people come by that, that were looking at our, sort of our, our range of offerings. Like, oh, that, that eight terabyte thing sounds great for us, which. That's good to hear. Uh, a lot of times I think smaller businesses in, in particular, or folks that are looking at like edge locations, they, they send that data back to mother base or wherever it's going, but a lot of times that data in transit, the time it takes to get there, the asynchronous nature of it, that can leave you with a data gap if something goes wrong. The idea of having these minis onsite at location, where the data is being collected, where it's being propagated and used. That just shortens the time to recovery and it also shortens the potential of data loss when there is an actual attack. So there, there was some interest, there was a quite a bit of interest in the mini actually, which made me very happy. And uh, alongside that, you know, I was telling people there's no compromise, right? When you, when you're getting a mini, you're just getting a smaller version of our two U appliance, you still get the honeypot feature and you also get access to our upcoming feature, which is fleet manager. Uh, which will give them access to a cloud-based service they log into where they can monitor and remotely manage their minis, their object first two use wherever they are from that single dashboard.
[00:07:54] Sean Martin: It's a cool use case.
[00:07:56] Anthony Cusimano: Mm-hmm.
[00:07:56] Sean Martin: Cool use case.
[00:07:58] Marco Ciappelli: All right? So every time I I talk to you, I just think like, absolutely, you know, it, it can be done. You guys are doing it. And I think people are excited. 'cause I, I, even on a personal level, I wanna be sure that. You know, my data is safe. I can't just count on some provider out there. You need, you need the, the, you know, kind of like a double sword that you, you know, you're good. So if people wanna learn and see what is the size that works for them, what kind of services you're offering, uh, let's, let's finish with a call to action. What can people do?
[00:08:32] Anthony Cusimano: Absolutely, and and to your point, Marco, it's all about zero trust, right? Don't trust anyone. Don't trust yourself, don't trust us. Do your research and if you wanna do some research on Object First, the way you can do that is go to our website, objectfirst.com. It's great, uh, resources on our resource library if you wanna learn about how we're ensuring our absolute immutability. If you don't wanna take our word for it and see what our third party penetration testers we engage with every year have found, we've got a report on that. And we have a new report that's actually gonna be posted very soon based on their 2025 results. So lots of good assets and resources defined there. And if you wanna stay up to date with all the things we're doing, uh, follow us on LinkedIn or our, any of our socials, Instagram, Twitter, X, excuse me. Well, wherever you go to, to keep up with information, we're, we're up to date on all of them. And you can always get, uh, all of our latest news there.
[00:09:22] Marco Ciappelli: Wonderful. And that's great way to end this conversation. Uh, we're looking forward to many more somewhere else in the world, maybe in Europe, maybe Black Hat or whatever it is. We always want to hear the news that you have and I'm sure our, everybody's happy to, to feel a little bit more secure. So thank you again, Anthony, and uh, thank you Sean. That was great.
[00:09:45] Sean Martin: Thanks, Marco. Thanks Anthony.
[00:09:47] Anthony Cusimano: Thanks all.
[00:09:48] Marco Ciappelli: Take care everybody. Okay.