It was in the offing for sometime. A lot of people in the Silicon Valley were speculating about the future of RSA Security, while many concurred that it would be bought out, not many could guess by whom. All the speculation culminated with EMC's announcement. EMC acquired RSA for some $2.1 bn, but it is not the first one to have courted RSA. Founded in 1986, RSA was first acquired by Security Dynamics in 1996, exactly a decade earlier. Over the years, RSA became synonymous with encryption and as the Internet spread globally so did RSA's power and dominion. The company generated revenues in range of $310 mn last fiscal year and much of the credit goes to Arthur W Coviello. Coviello has been with the company for over a decade and has been instrumental in turning the fortunes of the company. With its merger into EMC, Coviello is slated to head the new-formed security division and also perform the role of executive vice president at EMC. He had recently come down to India for a company event and spoke to at length with Shashwat Chaturvedi from Cyber Media News, on the issues of merger and the future of online security industry. Excerpts.

What are your views on the marriage of storage and software?
IT infrastructure and security have always been entwined with each other, though the way security was perceived and provided has changed dramatically over the years. A decade or so ago, security was bolted on top of the IT infrastructure. With the sophistication of attacks faced by an enterprise, there has been a steady shift to in-built security. Of late there has been a number of mergers of storage and software companies. It goes on to prove that the so-called marriage (between storage and software) is proceeding quite well.

How is the integration with EMC proceeding?
The merger has just been completed on Friday (September 15th). I do not anticipate much issues with the processes as we have acquired quite a few companies in the past and so has EMC. The deal has been well laid out, RSA will continue to have a level of independence within EMC and we will add value to the offerings of EMC. Rest will be much the same. In a sense, I am trading nine members of the board for a CEO (Joe Tucci, CEO, EMC).

How will your acquisition by EMC affect your standing in the market?
The security division (RSA) will accrue to EMC. We will work closely with RSA and service all their clients. Thus, we gain a better reach globally with EMC.

There is a general feeling that protection against virus attacks is all that is to online security. Your take?
With the explosion of e-commerce, the threats to enterprises have become quite significant. Of all the millions of Internet users, only a small percentage of them regularly update their operating systems or their anti-viruses. Most companies now have a customer face (online), and they are not very confident about the kind of security provided by the piece-meal solutions. As the threats have evolved and attacks have become more sophisticated, so does the security need to evolve and become more dynamic. The challenge is to provide a solution that is both comprehensive and cost-effective. The market for such solutions is pretty big. Take the instance of SecureID tokens; we have sold more than 20 mn such tokens. There has been a lot of demand for them, and we expect to have around 100 mn consumers for our array of authentication solutions by the end of the year.

What are the emerging trends in the cyber security space?
The latest technology in the space is risk-based authentication. It combines pattern-based behavior of a user with an IP address. For instance, a user who tends to pay bills online from the same computer for a long time does not raise doubts. But if there is a sudden wire-transfer of a few million dollars, to say Latvia, that should raise a few eyebrows. The system is based on a score kind of thing, where a pattern of behavior is established and the consumer is identified.

The other emerging trend is to extend security to other elements of the information life cycle. There is an attempt to secure points along the way, from the storage to the database, etc. But all this is done in seamlessly transparent and unobtrusive ways, the customers are more aware of security concerns and appreciate the efforts made to safeguard all the access points.

How is the online security space evolving in India?
Currently, the security market in India is not very large, due to low Internet penetration. But things are changing dramatically; the risk concerns are pretty much universally applicable. Every organization needs to evaluate their strategies based on three factors: risk, convenience and cost. Currently, the risk is lower (in India) and hence the market is smaller. The Indian market is smaller than the Australian one; the big difference is that while the Australian market is finite, opportunities are incredible in India. As the domestic market expands, so will the threats, and the types of attacks seen in the western markets will quickly come to India. But, India has the added advantage to learn from the best practices and, in a way, leapfrog over other players in terms of tech up-take.

Are you also looking at India for development work?
We have had a long-standing relationship with India for quite some years. MphasiS BFL developed a few of our consumer facing applications in the past. And HCL has worked on most of our products like the digital certificate server. We also have a captive center in India and are expanding our facilities. Currently there are some 50 people, and we hope to have around 200 by next year. Our association with HCL will continue to be strong. We also intend to provide local support to our customers in India in the days to come.

What about EMC in India?
Again, EMC is doing pretty good in India and their development center is right next to ours in Bangalore. So no problems on that front as well.

Finally, what is your personal take on the acquisition?
On a personal level, I would have preferred to continue as an independent entity. But I also have a duty towards my investors and stockholders, to ensure better returns on their investments. I am sure with this deal in place, the employees and customers will prosper.

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