Thirty eight years after it was founded, RSA Security is embarking on what may be its most challenging journey yet: cybersecurity startup. In this Spotlight Podcast, sponsored by RSA, we’re joined by Chief Digital Officer Dr. Zulfikar Ramzan about the company’s path forward as an independent company.

The company which was acquired by storage giant EMC back in 2006 and then became a part of Dell when that company acquired EMC in 2015 re-emerges as an independent company this week, more than six months after it was acquired by a group of investors led by Symphony Technology Group. 

Dr. Zulfikar Ramzan is the Chief Digital Officer at RSA Security.

What does independence looks like? What will RSA do with its newfound freedoms? And how does the challenging business environment created the ongoing COVID pandemic figure into the company’s plans? 

To find out, we invited Dr. Zulfikar Ramzan, RSA’s CTO into the Security Ledger studio. In this conversation, Zulli talks about how RSA’s path forward is informed by the company’s pioneering past, starting all the way in 1977,  when three MIT researchers Ron Rivest Adi Shamir and Len Adleman published research on a novel public key cryptosystem that took their name. 

Three Decades On: RSA Labs Sets Course for Future

The Past Informing the Future

As Ramzan sees it: the daring and persistence of the founders – whose work helped create the modern Internet, but who initially had to contend with the limitations of contemporary hardware and software, not to mention Cold War era restrictions on the sale of cryptography technology outside the US. That perseverance will serve as an inspiration to RSA as it looks to re-establish its leadership in vastly altered technology and security landscape.

Spotlight Podcast: Managing the Digital Risk in your Digital Transformation

To start off I asked Zulli to talk about RSA’s earliest days and what messages he and other company executives take from the company’s origins almost 4 decades ago.

(*) Disclosure: This podcast and blog post were sponsored by RSA Security for more information on how Security Ledger works with its sponsors and sponsored content on Security Ledger, check out our About Security Ledger page on sponsorships and sponsor relations.

As always,  you can check our full conversation in our latest Security Ledger podcast at Blubrry. You can also listen to it on iTunes and check us out on SoundCloud, Stitcher, Radio Public and more. Also: if you enjoy this podcast, consider signing up to receive it in your email. Just point your web browser to securityledger.com/subscribe to get notified whenever ...