Although, as a startup founder now, I don’t get much (any?) time to look at parts of the industry unrelated to what I am building, I would still consider myself to be pretty plugged into the cybersecurity ecosystem. I have a good idea what is being discussed, what people pay attention to, and what questions are being asked, be it among CISOs, security professionals, investors, founders, startup operators, industry analysts, or anyone in between.

When people in the industry talk about many companies, it’s either innovative startups or powerful incumbents with unmatched distribution that get discussed. And yet, in the past five years, I recall having only one conversation (yes, one!) about what was once one of the most consequential giants in cybersecurity: RSA Security. This is a huge miss because, as you will see today, RSA Security, through its alumni, spinoffs, and the sheer impact it had in all areas of cyber, continues to influence the direction of security. That is exactly what this article is about.

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A brief history of RSA Security

RSA Data Security was founded in 1982 by three MIT cryptographers, Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman (the name “RSA” comes from the first letters of their last names). These three people, whom you don’t hear much about, invented what is now known as the RSA public-key cryptography algorithm, an algorithm that became one of the foundational technologies of the modern internet. RSA made encryption commercially viable during a time when the idea of secure internet communication itself was still pretty theoretical. RSA software libraries enabled secure web traffic, VPNs, email encryption, and financial transactions. Basically, their tech became embedded everywhere, from browsers to banking infrastructure all over the world.

RSA’s ...