Former NSA Agent Becomes Cyber-Privacy Guru
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Two brothers, John and Will Ackerly – a former NSA employee and a George W. Bush White House insider – have launched a cyber-privacy platform more than seven years in the making. It’s called Virtru, and they claim this encryption tool will change the way we use email. “Our mission is to make privacy and encryption practical for the public,” Will says. “The problem isn’t that people don’t care about privacy. It’s that they haven’t had the right tools to take action.”
According to Popular Mechanics the Virtru tool is a free browser extension (currently compatible with Chrome and Mozilla Firefox) that integrates with popular email services such as Gmail, Yahoo, or Outlook. In Gmail, for example, the extension attaches like a toggle switch, making your email secure with just a click. Once a user hits “send secure,” the email is then encrypted with a key generated on the sender’s browser. The email addresses and the browser-generated key are then sent to a key management server, which Virtru controls.
Virtru uses identity protocols to grant the recipient access — this way users can continue using existing usernames and passwords and still receive secure emails. Finally, the key is sent directly to the recipient’s browser, iOS app, or desktop email. John is also quick to mention that Virtru doesn’t have access to the content of emails, only the keys required to open them.
iHLS – Israel Homeland Security
The Virtru team has also recognized one major prohibitive barrier for adopting email encryption. For any encryption service to work to its full potential, it’s best if both sender and recipient are part of the same ecosystem.
The team’s solution was to develop a secure reader that displays encrypted email without the requirement of the Virtru extension. Although it’s not quite as seamless as a traditional email exchange, this clever bit of design integrates security into everyday email that works with any email service.
Virtru is based on an open-source security technology called Trusted Data Format (TDF), which Will invented while with the NSA in 2007. “Instead of requiring a password that you could lose or gets shared with people you don’t intend, [with TDF] that password is instead a very long key,” Will says. “That key is then stored by a third-party key server and you control access to that key.” This grants Virtru the ability to revoke or put time limits on permissions to certain emails.
