RSA SecurID

RSA SecurID, formerly referred to as SecurID, is a mechanism developed by Security Dynamics (later RSA Security and now RSA, The Security Division of EMC) for performing two-factor authentication for a user to a network resource.

Description

The RSA SecurID authentication mechanism consists of a "token" — either hardware (e.g. a USB dongle) or software (a soft token) — which is assigned to a computer user and which generates an authentication code at fixed intervals (usually 60 seconds) using a built-in clock and the card's factory-encoded random key (known as the "seed"). The seed is different for each token, and is loaded into the corresponding RSA SecurID server (RSA Authentication Manager, formerly ACE/Server) as the tokens are purchased. On-Demand tokens are also available, which provide a tokencode via email or SMS delivery, eliminating the need to provision a token to the user.

The token hardware is designed to be tamper-resistant to deter reverse engineering. When software implementations of the same algorithm ("software tokens") appeared on the market, public code had been developed by the security community allowing a user to emulate RSA SecurID in software, but only if they have access to a current RSA SecurID code, and the original 64-bit RSA SecurID seed file introduced to the server. Later, the 128-bit RSA SecurID algorithm was published as part of an open source library. In the RSA SecurID authentication scheme, the seed record is the secret key used to generate one-time passwords. Newer versions also feature a USB connector, which allows the token to be used as a smart card-like device for securely storing certificates.