Trend Micro buys email encryption firm

UK company taken over by security giant.

Global security superpower

Trend Micro

has invested in a small email encryption firm based in Bristol, UK.

The company,

Identum

, emerged from Bristol University’s cryptography department five years ago, and markets an AES-based encryption software under the name

Private Post

, using public keys generated from a combination of the recipient’s email address and a global public key. The firm will change its name to

Trend Micro (Bristol) Ltd

.

The existing product line will continue to be sold, rebranded into the

Trend

stable, but no details of future plans for the technology, or the costs involved in the buyout, have yet emerged.

A press release on the deal is on the

Trend Micro

site

here

or at

Identum


here

. A white paper on

SK-KEM

, the technology behind the

Private Post

system, is

here

(PDF file).

Posted on 25 February 2008 by

Virus Bulletin