American security firm launches new way to ‘split passwords in two’ to thwart hacking attacks

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Washington, Oct. 11: The security division of EMC, RSA unveiled a new product that scrambles and then splits users’ passwords in two before storing them on different computer servers.

The security firm says that the facility offers better protection against hackers, who would only gain access to half a “randomised” password in the case of a successful attack.

“DCP scrambles, randomises and splits sensitive credentials, passwords and Pins and the answers to life or challenge questions into two locations,” the BBC quoted the firm’s marketing mamanger Liz Robinson, as saying.

“This is especially important in today’s landscape as we’ve seen over 50 million passwords stolen in large data breaches in 2012 alone,” she added.

According to the report, LinkedIn’s leak of 6.5 million passwords, Yahoo’s loss of more than 450,000 usernames and codes, and dating site eHarmony’s exposure of 1.5 million passwords are among this year’s highest profile cases.

RSA said that it aims to offer an extra level of protection by allowing its customers to re-randomise and re-split log-in data if they suspect a breach. So, unless hackers manage to break into both associated servers before this step is taken, they would be unable to marry up and unscramble stolen information, the report said.

RSA said DCP would be made available before the end of the year, costing about 150,000 dollars per licence. (ANI)