RSA Security

What RSA Security actually does

RSA ID Plus is the current platform, combining SecurID’s MFA heritage with modern identity features. It delivers risk-based authentication, push MFA, FIDO2 support, SSO, and identity governance capabilities. Available as cloud, hybrid, or on-prem deployment.

SecurID remains the core product line — hardware tokens, software tokens, and the Authentication Manager server that enterprises have run for decades. RSA has modernized around it with adaptive authentication that evaluates risk context before challenging users.

RSA also offers Fraud & Risk Intelligence for financial services — detecting account takeover, transaction fraud, and authentication anomalies. This is a different buyer (fraud teams, not security teams) but shares the underlying risk engine. DS for governance rounds out the portfolio with access certification and lifecycle management.

Who it’s best for

• Government agencies with FedRAMP and FIPS 140-2 requirements for MFA
• Financial institutions using RSA’s fraud detection and risk-based authentication
• Large enterprises with tens of thousands of RSA hardware tokens already deployed
• Organizations with on-prem or air-gapped environments needing offline MFA
• Companies in regulated industries needing NIST SP 800-63 compliant authentication

Pricing reality check

RSA pricing depends heavily on deployment model and existing contracts. Legacy SecurID customers on maintenance renewals often face significant uplift pressure to move to ID Plus subscriptions. New customer pricing for ID Plus cloud is competitive with Okta at list price but often lacks volume discounts for smaller deployments.

Hardware tokens carry per-unit costs and periodic replacement cycles. Organizations still running hardware tokens should factor in the total cost of token management — shipping, replacement, help desk calls — when comparing against modern push-based MFA alternatives. Many RSA customers are in the process of migrating away from hardware tokens, which reduces the ongoing hardware cost but requires project investment.

Alternatives to consider

• Okta — Modern identity platform with stronger SSO integration catalog. Cloud-native.
• Microsoft Entra ID — MFA included with M365 licensing. Sufficient for most organizations.
• Duo Security (Cisco) — Simpler MFA deployment. Better user experience. Popular for VPN and application MFA.
• Yubico — Hardware security keys (FIDO2) for organizations that want phishing-resistant MFA without RSA’s overhead.

The Charting Cyber take

RSA is a legacy player that still matters in specific contexts. If you’re in government with FedRAMP mandates, or a large bank with RSA’s fraud platform embedded in your transaction flows, switching costs are real and RSA continues to invest in these use cases.

For everyone else, there’s little reason to choose RSA over modern alternatives for new deployments. Okta, Microsoft Entra, and Duo all deliver better user experiences, faster deployment, and broader integration. If you’re an existing RSA customer, evaluate whether the migration cost justifies moving — but for greenfield identity projects, RSA should not be on the shortlist unless your compliance requirements specifically demand it.