IT Security Service Review: RSA SecurID

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RSA SecurID is one of the many products out there that can help IT users enhance their overall IT security. Consulting several of the other firms, this is one of the best security products for IT professionals out there. Can it do what it says it does? Is it capable of living up to the hype? Is it worth the investment? This article is one that is going to outline some of the major pros and cons, as well as some of the features associated with RSA SecurID. Lastly, there will be a verdict stating whether one should invest in the product or not.

Pros

First, let’s cover what some of the strengths are for this product:

  •  Excellent integration guides. The better the guides are, the easier it is to implement the product. When a product is relatively easy to implement, it is going to encourage users to be able to come to the platform. In addition, it can make it easier to adapt it to new platforms as they arise. This is essential for businesses staying ahead of the loop and trying to ensure everything in their environment is secure.
  • Wide support. It can be setup for a variety of applications and server side programs that it makes it an easy choice for many companies. There is even a way to interface it for Outlook Web Access, making it good for those running Windows servers. Being able to adapt the product is an essential key even in custom environments where it might be hard to secure it further.
  • Relatively Platform Independent. With support for a variety of commercial Linux, Unix, and Windows platforms, it can be a no-brainer for those seeking to use this an interface to work in their enterprise. Handling many of these enterprise platforms encourages several companies to try the product out and have a good chance of their servers being able to interface with it.
  • Ease of user management. It can handle different rules for different users. RSA SecurID is one tool that can greatly help many users keep their account safe and also to help corporations to restrict access to certain directories. Being able to set permissions and rules from an interface. It can even add a new page to the file’s properties page that allows the administrators to set the permissions.
it security, it security intelligence, it security consulting
Source: rsa

Cons

However, no product is perfect and RSA SecurID is no exception to the rule. Here are some issues to be aware of:

  •  Tokens can get out of sync easily. With a new code being generated every 60 seconds, it can make it easy for the system to constantly prompt the user for a new code for them to access the directories they need. Not something that most IT professionals want to deal with. Consultants might question the security element of this product if the tokens are getting out of sync.
  • Out of sync tokens could perhaps strain the server environment in which the program is running. It might take up space or eat up some of the RAM memory, thus causing issues that might not exist otherwise. This will have to be setup accordingly to prevent precious space being eaten up. IT professionals will have to consider this important fact before making the purchase.
  •  Product support. Even though a lot of platforms and environments are supported, some of them might be outdated and not even supported via the manufacturers. This can make it hard to get all of the latest systems supported from RSA. Even if the business had their own staff work on support, that can potentially be a waste of resources that could be better suited for something else. It might be worth consulting with others to see if they can help port it over to the needed platforms.

Features, Pricing and More

Let’s talk pricing of the product. A program like this can cost upwards of $17,000+ for 100 users with 3-year hardware tokens included. This means that it’ll recoup it’s cost in a relatively short amount of time and can reduce headaches that one might encounter in that time frame. Reducing headaches and problems can easily rack up more than the cost associated than investing in a product dedicated to security.

The two-factor authentication is something that makes it worthwhile to look into and is well known that most consulting firms can be able to work with as well. Being well-known ensures that it can have several interfacings, even interfacings offered by other corporations. The two-factor element is perfect for those seeking to ensure that there are layers of security that gets implemented into their system.

The mobile elements of the product are starting to be realized with supporting a platform such as Blackberry. It can only branch out into other mobile OSes as they grow in popularity. This is essential as more individuals and users are likely to be using these over a traditional computer or laptop. That shows that it is ready to pivot into these markets in the near future.

it security, it security intelligence, it security consulting
Source: rsa

Verdict

The final verdict is that this is a product that is well worth the investment that one might be able to make for effective IT security intelligence. Normally, authentication products can be wildly expensive and be wildly expensive to implement on another platform. The fact that RSA SecurID and its IT security consulting can support a lot of server-side platforms is one of it’s strongest suits. It features everything that most enterprises want and can be affordable when compared to the alternatives. Cost can be extended far beyond just implementing the program but in preventing some of the things that could damage the business and the lives of the users using the system. This essential element of the product can make the long-term savings even better.

The ability to also use it on a variety of platforms is also a very important key. One never knows what platforms are going to be implemented in the future. It is only wise for RSA to incorporate guides necessary to help get their product out to new technologies. And it can be relatively easy and cheap to do so in-house.

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