Tag Archive for RSA

| February 18, 2020
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RSA Sold

RSA SoldThe rumor mill was again right. During the holidays I wrote about Dell Technologies selling its RSA cybersecurity business. The encryption pioneer is being purchased by private equity firm Symphony Technology Group Partners (STG). The STG consortium includes the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board and AlpInvest Partners.

private equity firmSTG is based in Palo Alto, CA, and was founded in 2002. According to its website, the VC firm focuses on data, software, and analytics. STG entered the cybersecurity arena in April 2019 when they bought RedSeal, a cyber risk modeling firm in a $70M deal.

RSA Sold for $2B

The deal is expected to close in the next six to nine months. Financial terms were not disclosed, but multiple sources peg the all-cash deal at $2.08 billion.

In a prepared statement about the deal, William Chisholm, managing partner at Symphony Technology Group, said:

We are excited and fully committed to maximizing the power of RSA’s talent, expertise, and tremendous growth potential and continuing RSA’s strategy to serve customers with a holistic approach to managing their digital risk.

Rohit Ghai, president of RSA wrote:

Symphony Technology Group … independent configuration, we expect to be in an even better position to accelerate innovation, ensure customer success with our portfolio…

Dell Technology’s chief operating officer and vice chairman Jeff Clarke wrote in the post announcing the deal:

The strategies of RSA and Dell Technologies have evolved … different go-to-market models. The sale of RSA gives us greater flexibility to focus on integrated innovation across Dell Technologies.

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CRN notes that the purchase price for the STG deal is nearly identical to the $2.1B EMC paid to buy RSA back in 2006. RSA then moved to Dell Technologies in 2016 when Dell purchased EMC for $60B. But why did Dell sell RSA?

  • Dell seems to be sinking a lot of money into Secureworks.
  • 2 billion dollarsDell’s VMware just bought CarbonBlack, why not RSA?
  • RSA was founded “way back in 1982.” And being a “legacy security firm” RAS may be seen at VMware as being part of VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger’s “Security is broken” talking point. Can companies face age discrimination too?
  • Maybe Dell just needs the cash.

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| November 30, 2019
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RSA Available?

Updated 12/26/2019 – The rumor mill says that Dell Technologies is working with too big to fail Morgan Stanley in a bid to sell off RSA Security.

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RSA Available?

Is RSA available? In keeping with the wave of cybersecurity mergers and acquisitions the rumor mill is reporting that Dell is exploring the sale of its RSA Security business unit. If the rumors are correct, RSA can be had for at least $1 billion. Rumors about Dell potentially selling RSA have surfaced multiple times over the past few years.

RSA Security logoDell inherited RSA in 2016 as part of its $67 billion acquisition of EMC. EMC bought RSA for about $2.1 billion in 2006. RSA Security was founded in 1982.

RSA is well-known for its products. Well known products include SecurID multifactor authentication tokens and NetWitness for security incident event management and threat detection and response. However, RSA is probably best known for its annual RSA Conference in San Francisco. RSA faces many of the same issues that have precipitated the HP – Xerox face-off. The challenges include competition from fast-growing cloud and software based identity and access management (IAM) firms.  The RSA challengers include Okta and Ping Identity, according to Bloomberg.

Why is RSA Available

RSA SecurID multifactor authentication tokensDell may have put RSA on the block because it is redundant in the Dell portfolio. Dell also owns Secureworks, an MSSP that’s evolved a software-defined era led by threat detection and management services. Additionally, Dell’s VMware business now owns Carbon Black — an endpoint protection and cybersecurity company that works closely with MSSPs. Dell has been connecting the dots between Secureworks, VMware, and Carbon Black as part of its own enterprise security strategy.

Neither Dell nor RSA commented on the Bloomberg report.

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As I have noted a number of times on Bach Seat, the cyber-security market is seeing lots of M&A action. If Dell is really serious about unloading RSA, now is the time to do it. Before the cyber-security bubble bursts and/or the economy tanks again. Not only would selling RSA streamline Dell’s security story the $1 billion would allow Dell to pay down its debt after its purchase of EMC or fund other projects.

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| January 10, 2009
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Ransomware Gets Tougher

Ransomware Gets TougherAnti-malware vendor Trend Micro has noted an increase in ransomware. According to Wikipedia ransomware is a type of malware that encrypts the data belonging to an individual on a computer, demanding a ransom for its restoration.

This type of ransom attack can be accomplished by (for example) attaching a specially crafted file/program to an e-mail message and sending this to the victim. If the victim opens/executes the attachment, the program encrypts a number of files on the victim’s computer. A ransom note is then left for the victim. The victim will be unable to open the encrypted files without the correct decryption key.

Once the ransom demanded in the ransom note is paid, the attacker may (or may not) send the decryption key, enabling decryption of the “kidnapped” files.

Recently, Trend Micro Advanced Threats Researcher Ivan Macalintal reported that a new version of the GPcode ransomware has surfaced, It is said that Gpcode[dot]ag utilizes a 660-bit RSA public modulus. Attackers appear to be upping the ante, in early June 2008, another Gpcode variant, Gpcode [dor]ak, has been detected and researchers believe it utilizes an RSA encryption algorithm with a 1024-bit public key. “We estimate it would take around 15 million modern computers, running for about a year, to crack such a key,” writes Aleks Gostev, senior virus analyst at Kaspersky, on the company’s blog.

The rise of ransomware makes regular successful data backups even more important. With current backups, you can delete the files in question, restore them from your backup and let someone else pay the attacker.

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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