RSA appoints chief security officer

Security firm seeks to restore its reputation following major security breach

Secure token specialist RSA has appointed its first chief security officer (CSO), following the widely publicised cyber attack it suffered in March this year.

It has appointed Eddie Schwartz, previously CSO at Netwitness, a network monitoring firm acquired earlier this year by RSA's parent company, EMC.

Schwartz wrote in his Twitterfeed that he is up for the challenge, following a post from security blogger Martin McKeay, which read: "Good luck to @eddieschwartz. Only job more public and challenging at the moment would be CSO of Sony."

Recently, information leaked during the March cyber attack was used to infiltrate the networks of defence contractor Lockheed Martin.

In an open letter to RSA customers, executive chairman Art Coviello offered to: "Replace SecurID tokens for customers with concentrated user bases typically focused on protecting intellectual property and corporate networks."

He also offered to help RSA's B2C customers involved with web-based financial transactions implement risk-based authentication strategies.