RSA claims its ID technology good for e-commerce

RSA is pushing hard for mass adoption of its two-factor identification technology to boost e-commerce.

Art Coviello, CEO of RSA, said at the RSA Conference in Barcelona, Spain that the rise of online commerce was a tipping point which could make or break the success of online services. "Phishing, concerns customers, for example, but concerns vendors even more. In response, service providers such as banks have scaled back services to an unprecedented degree."

"The internet falls down in identity management," said Howard Schmidt, CIO of eBay. The common element in many attacks was weak identity controls, he said.

According to Schmidt, identity theft has been the top crime reported to the FTC for the last four years.

To take secure identity management into the mass market, RSA is targeting the consumer space with the goal of constructing trusted communities. In September, the firm announced a joint deal with AOL to produce tokens for the ISPs subscribers, and RSA is working with other partners on similar ventures.