Hacking crisis costs EMC reputation in security

By Jim Finkle

BOSTON (Reuters) - A recent cyber breach at EMC Corp's RSA security division and a related attack at defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp have damaged RSA's once-stellar reputation, according to industry experts.

That has given companies that sell alternatives to RSA's SecurIDs, such as Symantec Corp and Vasco Data Security International, more room to try to win customers from EMC.

SecurIDs are widely used electronic keys to computer systems, designed to thwart hackers by requiring two passcodes: one that is fixed and another that is automatically generated every few seconds by the security system.

Symantec is paying new customers $5 for every SecurID they trade in for similar technology from Symantec.

RSA's reputation took an initial hit in March when it disclosed that hackers had stolen information that could be used to reduce the effectiveness of SecurID devices in keeping intruders from accessing corporate networks.

That was particularly embarrassing as the hack came just a month after RSA published a paper advising companies on how to avoid the same kind of sophisticated attacks to which it fell victim.

RSA's reputation took a second hit last month when hackers tried to breach defense contractor Lockheed Martin using technology stolen from RSA.

"You have this established position as a security vendor. You're supposed to be protecting everybody else from the bad guys and you get hacked," said Brian Freed, an analyst with brokerage Wunderlich Securities.