AT&T is joining IBM in pulling out from one of the biggest cybersecurity conferences of the year over coronavirus fears

Brendan McDermid/Reuters

AT&T Inc. CEO Randall Stephenson

• AT&T has become the second big company to withdraw from one of cybersecurity's largest events, the annual RSA Conference, which is set to open next week in San Francisco.
• Other big companies like Microsoft and Cisco say they are still in, but monitoring updates.
• San Francisco has no confirmed cases of the virus, but security conference cancellations follow Facebook pulling a marketing summit in the city.
• The RSA conference organizers have said that it will provide "ample hand sanitizers" and urges attendees to "do your part by washing hands often for at least 20 seconds."
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

In another blow to tech conferences amid coronoavirus fears, AT&T pulled out of the RSA Conference on Thursday, joining IBM as a major US sponsor withdrawing from the cybersecurity trade show expected to draw more than 40,000 attendees to San Francisco next week.

"We value our participation in industry events like RSA and greatly support the measures taken by event organizers to protect attendees. But it is our responsibility to safeguard our employees," AT&T said on Twitter. A company spokesman declined to say more.

AT&T was a gold sponsor of the conference, which dates back to 1991 and is one of the largest events in the industry. The 2020 contract for RSA exhibitors says gold sponsorship costs $160,000. IBM had a platinum sponsorship that the contract says costs $265,000. Those numbers may not tell the whole story, however; the companies likely had already arranged for flights, hotels, and other incidental costs of attending the conference.

RSA said on a website it has created to provide coronavirus updates that the attendees who have canceled make up "approximately 1.2 percent of the total number of expected attendees," which would be around 500 people.

RSA conference officials tweeted Thursday that it was working with conference site Moscone Center "on new health and safety measures, including increased cleaning frequencies and ample hand sanitizers around RSAC. You can do your part by washing hands often for at least 20 seconds."

The San Francisco Department of Public Health said there are no confirmed cases of the virus in the city, noting "however, given the amount of travel between San Francisco and China, we understand a confirmed case in San Francisco is possible." A person's risk depends on travel history, spokeswoman Veronica Vien said.

Earlier this week Facebook canceled a marketing summit expected to bring 5,000 people to San Francisco, where the city reports convention attendees spend an average of $567 per day.

Mobile World Conference, which annually draws some 100,000 attendees to Barcelona in late February, called off its show earlier this month. Last week another cybersecurity conference, Black Hat Asia, canceled its conference, which was to begin in late March in Singapore.

McAfee, a top RSA sponsor, said Thursday that "We are still committed to RSA and are monitoring the situation closely." "We anticipate moving forward with RSA as planned. Our priority is our customers, partners and employees, and we continue to monitor the situation closely," Cisco told Business Insider in a statement.

Microsoft, a Platinum sponsor previewing new mobile security products at the conference, said "Our plans to participate in RSA 2020 remain unchanged. The safety of our employees is a top priority and we will evaluate the situation and adjust plans as necessary." Microsoft founder Bill Gates has given $100 million to fight the virus, and warned last week that a pandemic could kill 10 million people.

More than 2,100 people have died from the virus, which surfaced in Wuhan, a city in western China. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have tracked some infections to the United States, including in California. The US has suspended entry in the United States of foreign nationals who have visited China within the past 14 days.

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