Exclusive: Secret contract tied NSA and security industry pioneer (RSA)
Source: Reuters
As a key part of a campaign to embed encryption software that it could crack into widely used computer products, the U.S. National Security Agency arranged a secret $10 million contract with RSA, one of the most influential firms in the computer security industry, Reuters has learned.
Documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden show that the NSA created and promulgated a flawed formula for generating random numbers to create a "back door" in encryption products, the New York Times reported in September. Reuters later reported that RSA became the most important distributor of that formula by rolling it into a software tool called Bsafe that is used to enhance security in personal computers and many other products.
Undisclosed until now was that RSA received $10 million in a deal that set the NSA formula as the preferred, or default, method for number generation in the BSafe software, according to two sources familiar with the contract. Although that sum might seem paltry, it represented more than a third of the revenue that the relevant division at RSA had taken in during the entire previous year, securities filings show.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/21/us-usa-security-rsa-idUSBRE9BJ1C220131221
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)Archaic
(273 posts)Which is a generous term considering how they stored what was stolen last time.
Momentum is the only thing keeping places like this in business. EMC has some damage control to do now.
PSPS
(13,599 posts)jsr
(7,712 posts)Maedhros
(10,007 posts)CLEARLY.
They encouraged, and paid, RSA to offer a product specifically designed to NOT do what it was advertised to do.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,320 posts)William Seger
(10,778 posts)Indi Guy
(3,992 posts)...And tech companies big and small are paying the price for their complicity.
...And America's less secure because of the economic hits software companies have taken in the global market.
...And everything that Spook Central touches turns to dung.