Keep Using SecurID, Despite The RSA Breach

Keep your passwords strong

What this means to you is there’s not an immediate threat, even if whoever stole the information from RSA figures out how to hack the SecurID code. What it means is you need to make sure you practice and enforce good password discipline in addition to using the SecurID token.

After all, most of the people trying to break into your data system probably aren’t the same people who broke into RSA. But even if they are, you still have a password to prevent entry. Now’s the time to make sure that you confirm that you really are requiring strong passwords (though quite how strong is open to discussion), that they’re changed as necessary and that people don’t write them down on Post-It notes and stick them to their monitors.

The RSA breach also means you have to make sure that employees are practicing safe computing, which they should have been doing anyway. They may need to be reminded that they shouldn’t open attachments on strange e-mails and they shouldn’t share their passwords. In addition, security managers should monitor access attempts, and they should monitor any changes to privilege levels and access rights, all things that should be done anyway.

While two-factor authentication is very secure, it’s not able to overcome bad security practices. In other words, SecurID isn’t a silver bullet, it’s just a very convenient token. But it’s still a token. Even without the theft from RSA, it’s a token that can be misused. It’s also subject to social engineering or just plain larceny. The problem with a very effective security solution such as SecurID is it’s easy to become complacent, and as a result fail to protect your security against access that shouldn’t take place with or without SecurID.

Continue to use your SecurID card

So for now, you’re probably safe. What should be worrying you is learning exactly who took the information from RSA and why. Clearly this was a highly sophisticated attack, and whoever went to the effort to do it clearly had a reason. Were they trying to steal RSA’s trade secrets to build a competing device? Was it the Russians, Chinese, terrorists, criminal gangs or some other group trying to find out government secrets? Once we know what was taken, who took the information and why, it’ll be easier to protect against such an attack.

But for now, continue to use your SecurID card, but otherwise go back to those standard security practices that you should have been doing anyway. You might think about adding a second type of two-factor authentication just in case, even though there’s no evidence right now that existing implementations are actually compromised. It is, after all, a good idea to have a backup system just in case one fails.