RSA and Citrix Help Organizations Maintain Choice and Security in End Point Devices

BEDFORD, MA - November 07, 2011 -

RSA, The Security Division of EMC (NYSE: EMC), today announced that its award-winning multi-factor authentication solution, RSA SecurID®, has been integrated into the Citrix Receiver™ virtual desktop software client, allowing organizations to support employee access to enterprise data, applications and desktops from any computing device while helping IT maintain required levels of security and access control.

Citrix Receiver is a universal software client that allows organizations to deliver corporate applications, desktops and data to any device, whether corporate or employee owned. Citrix Receiver provides support for virtually every kind of client, including Windows®, Mac® and Linux® desktops and laptops; thin clients; and the latest iOS®, Android™ and RIM® tablets and smart phones. By supporting a centralized and virtualized infrastructure, Citrix Receiver is engineered to help IT maintain control over the user experience with the security and scalability needed to ensure comprehensive data, application and desktop support. Users are provided a virtual image of these resources via Citrix Receiver, with no data or applications residing on the mobile device itself.

With integrated support for the RSA SecurID software token, Citrix Receiver provides an additional layer of protection to enhance the level of access control security, enabling organizations to allow user access to sensitive enterprise data and applications via popular tablet, smart phone and PC devices.

“The integration of Citrix Receiver and the RSA SecurID soft token is an important step forward in providing convenience for users while maintaining enhanced security for IT,” Chris Fleck, vice President for Mobility and Alliances, Citrix Systems. “Mobile users are more demanding than ever. The faster and easier it is to access enterprise apps, the larger the productivity gain from mobilizing a company’s work force.”

RSA SecurID technology has been optimized for mobile applications to provide strong one-time password authentication without impacting the familiar experience of entering a username and password and enables users designed to seamlessly authenticate through Citrix Receiver with the RSA SecurID software token. However, instead of prompting the user to manually enter the one-time token code, the integrated solution leverages RSA APIs to do this automatically, effectively streamlining the strong authentication user login process.

“Today, organizations are grappling with how best to deliver productivity enhancing business applications to mobile workers while protecting mobile devices and the sensitive information they contain from misuse or mobile malware,” says Sam Curry, Chief Technology Officer, Identity and Data Protection at RSA. “Citrix and RSA have a market-ready solution that allows organizations to turn almost any mobile device into a powerful business tool to access virtual applications and desktops. Companies with mobile sales forces, healthcare organizations with sensitive patient care applications and retailers with point-of-sale devices are just a few examples of organizations that can leverage this solution to help ensure only authorized mobile users are allowed access to enterprise applications, data and desktops.”

The integrated solution is engineered to help IT organizations ease provisioning of Citrix Receiver and RSA SecurID software tokens to mobile devices with minimal user interaction. The use of RSA SecurID software tokens helps decrease total cost of ownership for organizations as they don't require any physical shipping, can be revoked and automatically redeployed, eliminating the need for replacement tokens. 

RSA SecurID is engineered to assure user identities and protect against unauthorized access to applications and resources across physical, virtual and cloud environments. RSA SecurID technology is comprised of both a broad range of hardware and software authenticators that provide end users with a one-time password that is designed to change every 60 seconds, as well as its software engine - RSA® Authentication Manager - which is engineered to scale to support millions of users and provides the benefit of technical certification with more than 300 products.

Citrix Receiver support for RSA SecurID will be available in December 2011 as a free upgrade to existing Citrix Receiver customers. Android users can preview the RSA SecurID functionality in the Citrix Receiver for Android Beta release available in Android Market™. More information is also available at the Citrix Support web site.