RSA SecurID Replacement: VARs Respond

IT solution providers may forgive security giant RSA for the security breach that led to the compromise of RSA SecurID tokens. What may be unforgivable has been RSA's silence when it came to telling VARs about the severity of the breach in a timely manner.

RSA's confirmation of the severity of its March data breach this week and announcement that it will replace 40 million SecurID authentication tokens as a result has left partners scrambling with many questioning the reputation of the vaunted security vendor.

"Trust is the currency of business in information security," says Rick Moy, CEO of NSS Labs, a security analyst and testing firm. "Because people buy products from people they trust and they trust those products to do what they say they do and in this case the trust in RSA is technology and the corporate response to the customers is severely shaken."