RSA warns SecurID customers after company is hacked

18.03.2011
EMC's RSA Security division says the security of the company's two-factor SecurID tokens could be at risk following a sophisticated cyber-attack on the company.

In a , RSA Executive Chairman Art Coviello said his company is "actively communicating this situation to RSA customers and providing immediate steps for them to take to strengthen their SecurID implementations."

"While at this time we are confident that the information extracted does not enable a successful direct attack on any of our RSA SecurID customers, this information could potentially be used to reduce the effectiveness of a current two-factor authentication implementation as part of a broader attack," Coviello said.

Coviello's note offered few details on what happened, but it has offered

The cyber-attack was "recent" and was a so-called Advanced Persistent Threat incident, Coviello said. This is the type of attack that compromised systems at Google and as many as 100 other companies in late 2009. Hackers use e-mail-based or Web-based attacks to get a foothold in the company and then move about the company's internal networks looking for sensitive data to sneak out.

In this case, the hackers found information on RSA's SecurID products -- which are used on PCs, USB devices, phones and key fobs in about 25,000 corporations to provide an extra layer of security beyond a username and password for people logging into programs or networks.