Symantec scraps RSA tokens

Symantec has begun to replace its global fleet of RSA SecurID tokens following its acquisition of VeriSign's Authentication Services last year.

The swap comes in the wake of the high-profile breach of RSA tokens in March, although the company said it already had planned to dump RSA for Versign's Public Key Infrastructure platform uder its "Eat Our Own Cookie" program, an initiative by the company to use its own technology.

The SecurID token system, used globally by Symantec, was compromised in a multi-pronged attack this year, forcing RSA to replace the keys for some affected customers and offer security services to others.

"There has been a long-running transition to Versign since the acqusition," Symantec said.

Symantec reportedly kicked off the transition overnight by enabling support of VeriSign Identity Protection (VIP) and X.509 certificates for its Managed Security Services (MSS).

"... customers accessing the MSS portal will see these new capabilities. This release begins Symantec MSS’ migration away from using RSA SecurID tokens for portal access," a unverified pastebin post said. Symantec spokeswoman Debbie Sassine could not immediately validate the information this morning.

"Existing users may continue to use RSA SecurID but are encouraged to use VIP."

The VeriSign tokens will be enabled for portal and phone authentication, according to the post.

Symantec's move follows a string of banks in Australia that replaced or dumped RSA tokens after SecurID was hacked.