WILMINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Security Innovation announced today that its public key cryptography digital signature algorithm, NTRUSignTM, has been granted patent 7,913,088 for secure electronic communication and document identification. The patent signifies another milestone for the NTRUTM algorithm, expanding its areas of application to include near field communications between devices such as smart phones and smart cards for mobile payments and transactions. Aside from being ideally suited to secure financial transactions, NTRUSign offers a higher level of security for legal documents that require digital signatures for electronic storage.
Traditional digital signature cryptography that uses RSA with SSL tends to slow down data transmissions and will be able to be broken by quantum computing attacks. The NTRUSign algorithm is based on a mathematical problem known as the Approximate Closest Vector Problem, making it up to 200 times faster than RSA and resistant to quantum computing attacks.
“Law firms have been storing more and more documents electronically and financial services companies have engaged in more Internet transactions, which will increase exponentially with the coming of ‘mobile wallets.’ These markets need a level of security that will match the longevity of the data and the extremely high-volume of transactions,” said Ed Adams, CEO of Security Innovation. “NTRU continues to be independently scrutinized and awarded, held to the standards of these types of organizations and the information they are responsible for protecting. NTRUSign is the best option.”
With NTRUSign, the receiver of a digitally signed message can gain confidence in the following:
- Identity of the sender - the digital signature provides a means of authenticating the sender
- Integrity of the message - the digital signature lets the recipient be confident that the message has not been tampered with in transit, but is the same message the sender intended to send
NTRUEncryptTM, which is based on the same NTRU algorithm, was recently approved by the Accredited Standards Committee X9 as a new encryption standard for data protection. Because NTRU is smaller and faster than other public key crypto, it provides numerous performance and security benefits to the financial community. Additionally, because of its small footprint, NTRU is ideal for handheld and mobile devices that historically haven’t offered strong encryption security due to limited computing resources. NTRUEncrypt is also IEEE certified. The patent granted for NTRUSign represents another significant achievement for the NTRU algorithm. NTRU has gained widespread acceptance and credibility since it was first presented in 1996. Many organizations, including the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), acknowledge the need for a public-key crypto system that is optimized for constrained mobile devices and resistant to quantum computing. NTRU was the winner of the 2011 Tomorrow's Technology Today Award for Cryptography by Info Security Products Guide.
About Security Innovation
Security Innovation is an established leader in the application security and cryptography space. For over a decade the company has provided products, training and consulting services to help organizations build and deploy more secure systems and improve the process by which their applications are built.
Security Innovation built upon its core competencies in application security with the acquisition of NTRU CryptoSystems in 2009, a company that developed proprietary, standardized algorithms. This resulted in the strongest and fastest public key cryptography available and the means to overcome historical performance barriers that have plagued the encryption industry. With these core strengths intact, Security Innovation is in a position to help organizations protect their data at two critical points: while applications are accessing it and during transmission. The company’s flagship products include TeamProfessor, the industry’s largest library of application eLearning courses; and TeamMentor, a web-based secure development methodologies product.
Security Innovation is privately held and is headquartered in Wilmington, MA USA.
Note to Editors: Security Innovation, NTRUEncrypt, NTRUSign, TeamMentor, TeamProfessor and the Security Innovation logo are trademarks of Security Innovation. All other brand names may be trademarks of their respective owners.