RSA SecurID® Access

Username-and-password authentication remains the dominant approach despite being insecure and cumbersome, creating a mismatch between growing cloud-era cyber-risk and users’ expectations for frictionless access. Adaptive Authentication is presented as the response, enabling organizations to deploy strong yet flexible authentication across on-premises systems, cloud services, VPNs, and endpoints. In the KuppingerCole definition, “adaptive” has two dimensions: accommodating a wide variety of authenticators (and the ability to change or combine them), and adjusting required authentication strength and identity assurance based on what is being accessed, including step-up authentication when risk or criticality increases. Adaptive Authentication unifies strong authentication, 2FA/MFA, and Risk-Based Authentication by evaluating contextual risk (such as location) and mapping it to appropriate assurance levels.

RSA SecurID Access is positioned as an integrated Adaptive Authentication platform available on-premises, in hybrid models, and as a cloud service. It combines a backend risk-based engine, endpoint support, and broad authenticator choice, including mobile push-to-approve, biometrics, SMS, and RSA hardware/software tokens. Its backend services correlate contextual signals, compare them against policies, and make access decisions that can allow, deny, or require additional factors; machine learning analyzes user behavioral patterns to improve security and streamline experience. The solution supports numerous authentication methods, including biometric options (e.g., Apple TouchID, Samsung Fingerprint) and FIDO Alliance standards.

Integration breadth is emphasized: over 500 certified out-of-the-box integrations, standards support (SAML, OpenID Connect, RADIUS), plus reverse proxy and password vaulting for non-standards apps, REST APIs, and direct support for SSH and various Unix/Linux platforms. A key gap is formal OAuth 2.0 support. Editions range from Base (more limited methods) to Enterprise and Premium (with advanced behavior analytics), with competitive perpetual and subscription pricing.

• Username-and-password authentication is insecure and cumbersome yet remains the most widely used authentication approach.
• Adaptive Authentication supports step-up authentication by adding another factor when required.
• Risk-Based Authentication can use contextual risk such as user location to determine required authentication strength.
• RSA has more than 30,000 customers.
• RSA has more than 50 million active SecurID Access users.
• RSA SecurID Access supports mobile push-to-approve authentication.
• RSA SecurID Access supports biometric authenticators including Apple TouchID and Samsung Fingerprint.
• RSA SecurID Access publicly states support for more than 500 on-premises and cloud integrations with certified interoperability.
• RSA SecurID Access includes a REST-based authentication API and supports RADIUS.
• RSA SecurID Access lacks formal support for OAuth 2.0.

• “Authentication based on usernames and passwords is both insecure and cumbersome.”
• “Adaptive Authentication is the solution for these requirements.”
• “It allows organizations to implement a flexible yet strong authentication scheme across the broad range of applications they are running, be it on-premises or in the cloud.”
• “It is adaptive regarding the required level of authentication strength and identity assurance.”
• “Adaptive Authentication is the umbrella approach, integrating concepts such as strong authentication, Two-Factor Authentication (2FA), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), and Risk-Based Authentication (RBA).”
• “Users are familiar with biometric authentication on their mobile phones and users want to use something that works smoothly with their device of choice.”
• “Organizations must move from isolated, per-system approaches for strong authentication towards centralized authentication platforms supporting Adaptive Authentication to a variety of different applications…”
• “At the center of RSA SecurID Access are the backend services that examine contextual factors of users, correlate these, and compare them to policies.”
• “The list of integrations indeed is impressive.”
• “The traditional, one size fits all approach to strong authentication isn’t good enough anymore.”