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40 At 40: A Look At Pioneering IT Companies Founded In 1982 And Before
Rick Whiting
As part of CRN’s 40th anniversary this year, here’s a look at 40 companies across the IT industry that have been around as long as CRN – and in many cases much longer.

RSA
RSA Data Security was founded in 1982 by MIT colleagues Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Leonard Adleman who, five years earlier, had developed the public-key cryptography method for securing network communications. The company’s name came from the first letter of their last names, according to a National Inventors Hall of Fame entry for Shamir.
The public-key method, used to safeguard electronic transaction data, has proven instrumental to the growth of the internet and e-commerce.
RSA was acquired by EMC Corp. in 2006 and became part of Dell Technologies in 2016 after Dell’s acquisition of EMC. RSA was sold to a consortium of private investors, led by Symphony Technology Group, in 2020.
RSA today is a leading provider of cybersecurity and digital risk management software including SecurID and Outseer for identity and access management, Netwitness for threat detection and response, and Archer for integrated risk management.
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