WILMINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Security Innovation announced today that its NTRUEncryptTM algorithm has been approved by the Accredited Standards Committee X9 as a new encryption standard for data protection. The X9.98 standard specifies how to use NTRUEncrypt to protect data for financial transactions through a public/private-key crypto system.
“Financial services require strong crypto for obvious reasons,” said Ed Adams, CEO of Security Innovation. “As payment and banking systems move toward the mobile space, crypto size, as well as strength, become increasingly important. Security Innovation’s NTRU encryption is a stronger alternative to RSA because its speed and high-performance enables mobile devices to handle many transactions without compromising security and without using up battery power.”
X9, the official body for technical standardization for the financial services industry, develops, establishes, maintains, and promotes standards to facilitate the delivery of financial services and products. Because NTRU is smaller and faster than other public key crypto, it provides numerous performance and security benefits to the financial community. Financial institutions can now offer high-security data communications without incurring hefty costs or sacrificing performance, which has not been possible with other public key crypto such as RSA. 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.
Recognizing the need for stronger crypto that will hold up under increasingly powerful attacks, such as those that will be enabled by quantum computing, and understanding how NTRU is unique in its ability to do this, the X9 standards body created the X9.98 standard and certified NTRU. It is the only crypto to be X9.98 certified, which specifies cryptographic functions for establishing symmetric keys, using a lattice-based polynomial public key encryption algorithm. “Security Innovation has always been committed to improving IT security and protecting customer data,” said Adams. “The availability of crypto that meets this new standard, in NTRU, is a significant advancement for the financial community.”
In addition to NTRU being the smallest and fastest PKI available, also it is resistant to quantum computing attacks. Financial institutions can deploy future-proof systems that won’t need to be replaced as quantum computing advances. “We created NTRU with the goal of ensuring that confidential data could be encrypted where it’s most vulnerable, which is in transit,” said Dr. William Whyte, Chief Scientist of Security Innovation. “Knowing that the footprint of computing and storage device sizes would continue to shrink, and given the threat of quantum computing to widely-adopted crypto systems like RSA and Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC), we realized the need for breakthrough performance and future-proof crypto. This is why we are driving the commercial availability of NTRU.”
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’s adoption as an X9 standard is another step in that direction.
In other news today, Security Innovation outlined its strategy to solidify its position as the authority on application security.
About ASC X9
The Accredited Standards Committee X9 – Financial Industry Global Standards – is the only industry-wide forum that brings together bankers, vendors, security experts, regulators, associations, retailers and others to address technical problems, find the best solutions and codify them as American National Standards for the financial services industry.
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, TeamMentor, TeamProfessor and the Security Innovation logo are trademarks of Security Innovation. All other brand names may be trademarks of their respective owners.