RSA chief says two groups for SecurID breach

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/101111-rsa-chief-says-two-groups-251804.html

By Jeremy Kirk
IDG News Service
October 11, 2011

Six weeks after EMC's RSA security division saw its SecurID system hit 
by hackers, RSA president Tom Heiser met with the CIO of a large global 
medical device company.

The CIO wasn't happy. SecurID, an authentication system used by 40 
million people in at least 30,000 organizations worldwide to securely 
access IT systems, had been compromised. RSA had posted a vague letter 
on its website on March 17, shortly after the intrusion, but details of 
the attack were scarce.

"The CIO was very upset," Heiser said. "It wasn't a pleasant 
conversation, I can assure you that."

The company was one of hundreds that RSA directly reached out to 
following the attack, which prompted questions about how safe it was to 
still use SecurID. Many corporate users have a SecurID device, which 
displays a temporary one-time passcode that allows them access to an IT 
system.

On Tuesday at RSA's security conference in London, Heiser revealed more 
details than have so far been known about of the attack, which RSA 
insists did not undermine the integrity of the entire system.

RSA, which has worked with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, the 
U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.K. law enforcement and other 
agencies, believes that two groups were responsible for the attack. EMC 
Executive Chairman Art Coviello declined to identify the groups, but 
said that due to the sophistication of the intrusion "we can only 
conclude it was a nation-state sponsored attack."

[...]


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