
IBM has also pulled out of the event over coronavirus concerns. Both were conference sponsors.
The announcement posted on the conference’s coronavirus update page said registration would open as planned on Saturday. The conference is scheduled for Monday through Friday.
Among the speakers from the public sector is John Cleveland, Chief of Security Operations for the California Department of Technology. A CDT spokesperson told Techwire on Friday that Cleveland was still planning to participate as a panelist at 12:15 p.m. Monday, on the topic of “State and Local Risk Management in Practice.”
And departing Santa Clara County Chief Information Officer Ann Dunkin confirmed Friday to Techwire that she will still participate in a 1 p.m. panel discussion on “Cyber Security as a Public Service.”
“Since our last update, the number of individuals, including those from AT&T Cybersecurity, who have canceled their registration is approximately 1.2 percent of the total number of expected attendees,” RSA wrote on its website. Organizers wrote that six of nine companies from China scheduled to participate in the conference had canceled due to travel restrictions from China and that the remaining three will have booths staffed with U.S. workers.
Facebook Gaming and the social network’s Oculus virtual reality unit also announced Thursday that they would not attend the Game Developers Conference set to take place in San Francisco in mid-March.
Facebook had previously said it would cancel its Global Marketing Summit planned for next month in San Francisco. The event was scheduled to have about 5,000 attendees and would have generated $11 million in spending in the city.
Concerns over the COVID-19 coronavirus have roiled business travel globally.
Shocking the tech world, Mobile World Congress told its more than 100,000 registered attendees the conference in Barcelona would not go forward in the face of growing coronavirus infections.
Techwire contributed to this report.
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