RSA Chief Says Two Groups Responsible for SecurID Breach

Via ComputerWorld -

Six weeks after EMC's RSA security division saw its SecurID system hit by hackers, RSA president Tom Heiser met with the CIO of a large global medical device company.

The CIO wasn't happy. SecurID, an authentication system used by 40 million people in at least 30,000 organizations worldwide to securely access IT systems, had been compromised. RSA had posted a vague letter on its website on March 17, shortly after the intrusion, but details of the attack were scarce.

"The CIO was very upset," Heiser said. "It wasn't a pleasant conversation, I can assure you that."

The company was one of hundreds that RSA directly reached out to following the attack, which prompted questions about how safe it was to still use SecurID. Many corporate users have a SecurID device, which displays a temporary one-time passcode that allows them access to an IT system.

On Tuesday at RSA's security conference in London, Heiser revealed more details than have so far been known about of the attack, which RSA insists did not undermine the integrity of the entire system.

RSA, which has worked with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.K. law enforcement and other agencies, believes that two groups were responsible for the attack. EMC Executive Chairman Art Coviello declined to identify the groups, but said that due to the sophistication of the intrusion "we can only conclude it was a nation-state sponsored attack."

Heiser said both groups had been known to authorities before, although they were not known to work together.

"What does this tell us?" Heiser asked. "Our adversary was determined, persistent and very well coordinated. They knew what to look for and where to go."

[...]

Heiser said the attacks were sophisticated: they used advanced techniques to connect to RSA's systems and used different malware, some of which was compiled just hours before an attack. The information stolen was compressed and encrypted before it was exfiltrated, making it more difficult to identify.

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So you have two groups from one nation-state? Sounds like neither of them knew what the other was doing. This sounds very familiar (think Operation Aurora).

Who were these groups? I have my feelings ;)