RSA 2015 RSA president Amit Yoran tore into the infosec industry today, telling 30,000 attendees at this year's RSA computer security conference that they have failed.

“2014 was yet another reminder that we are losing this contest,” Yoran said in his keynote this morning at the annual event in San Francisco, California. “The adversaries are outmaneuvering the industry … and winning by every measure.”

Yoran, who was made president of RSA in October 2014, told the record crowd they are “stuck in the Dark Ages” in terms of security thought, adding that 2015 will be the year of the "super-mega breach."

He said security bods should drop “legacy approaches” that have led to a false sense of security. Such approaches are akin to building “higher walls” and “deeper moats,” which will not help address the shortcomings in security.

Instead, infosec bods should work on developing strategies rather than buying boxes that have no chance of beating evolving complex attacks.

“No matter how high or smart the walls, focused adversaries will find ways over, under, around, and through,” Yoran said. “You must understand what matters to your business and what is mission critical [and] defend it with everything you have.” ®

Darren Pauli is attending the RSA 2015 conference as a guest of RSA, an EMC-owned company.