RSA is in Trouble

So what do you when your main product is broken into by hackers, your intellectual property is in the hands of the unknown, and customers are in an uproar....it's time to get serious.  Back in March RSA admitted that hackers broke into their systems and compromised their RSA tokens.  Then came an attempted hack into Lockheed Martin based on their use of RSA tokens.  With the millions of customers that use RSA tokens people are starting to worry.  While RSA has been tight lipped about the attack, what exactly has been compromised, and what customers can do....competitors are starting to take action.

First you need to ask yourself if you could possible trust RSA at this point in time?  Their reputation has been tarnished because of the serious hack and clients are wavering because of the lack of response coming from RSA.  Companies should now start asking themselves...is it time to switch vendors?

Google has implemented 2 factor authentication into their Gmail recently that makes use of mobile phones.  There are a few open sources projects that also make use of this concept which is gaining in popularity.  Another alternative for companies is to look at other vendors that can offer the same products as RSA, but at a much lower price.  Entrust is a great company that claims to be able to offer great cost savings to customers that make the switch.  In addition Symantec also offers 2 factor authentication via tokens and is giving away $5 for each token that clients trade in and move over to Symantec instead.  With that kind of savings on trade ins how could you afford not to trade in?!  EMC, the parent company of RSA also doesn't seem too concerned as RSA only makes up 7% of their total annual sales.

While it takes time and planning to make the change over to another vendor and product I think that there will be a major shift in 2 factor tokens coming.  I'll be interested to see what vendor takes over as a leader in this space.