Academic Centre
Founded in 2010 as a joint venture between U.S. trusted computing pioneer Intertrust and a team of Riga-based computer scientists, whiteCryption has become the foremost provider of application shielding technologies including software code protection and the world’s most advanced white-box cryptography algorithms. Today, whiteCryption is used globally to protect apps running in zero-trust environments in markets including financial services, media and entertainment, healthcare, smart home, and automotive.
The original research that led to the creation of whiteCryption came from a collaboration between academic computer scientists at the University of Latvia and German-born serial entrepreneur and researcher Wulf Harder, and his associates at Syncrosoft Corporation, which developed advanced hardware security technologies and was eventually acquired by Yamaha/Steinberg. Both Syncrosoft and whiteCryption have benefited tremendously from the top-quality Latvian talent base in this domain to develop their unique intellectual property. Harder entered into partnership with Intertrust to develop whiteCryption and project its brand globally in 2010.
“We have built internationally recognized research capabilities at the University of Latvia and its alumni network,” said Professor Guntis Arnicans, Dean of the Faculty of Computing at the University of Latvia. “We congratulate whiteCryption on its tenth anniversary and we are very proud of our award-winning graduates at whiteCryption and elsewhere in the Latvian technology community, and look forward to decades more of growth and scientific progress.”
Intertrust acquired a majority stake in whiteCryption in 2010 as its go-to-market vehicle for application shielding and software tamper resistance after years of research in this area. Since then, whiteCryption has played a key role in defining the market for these products and has scored a series of design wins with major industry leaders in healthcare, automotive, banking and most recently with Google.
“As mobile apps and IoT devices entered the mainstream, we made a strategic move in software protection for apps running in hostile environments where reverse engineering and malware were a serious threat, and conventional techniques did not hold up,” said Robert E. Tarjan, senior research fellow at Intertrust. “whiteCryption’s technology and its team of prize-winning computer scientists and mathematicians were a perfect fit for our intellectual property in this area. We quickly discovered that the talent base in Riga was an outstanding asset and a great place to locate our R&D operations.”
“I have always been inspired by the tremendous innovation potential in the Baltic region,” said Wulf Harder, whiteCryption’s founder who is currently innovating in the area of quantum security. “The history of trade with Germany and the Scandinavian countries, a solid and global education system and a population of brilliant young minds prepared to take entrepreneurial risk made it a perfect place to start companies at the bleeding edge of computer science. I am continuously impressed by the quality of research in Latvia, including in new areas like the theory of quantum computing where we have one of the strongest research groups worldwide at the University of Latvia, led by Professor Andris Ambainis.”
whiteCryption’s main R&D center is located in Riga, and employs nearly 30 of the country’s top security researchers and engineers. Many have won awards at mathematics and informatics Olympiads and competitions, and are dedicated to advancing the field of algorithmic software tamper resistance and application shielding.
About Intertrust
Intertrust provides trusted computing products and services to leading global corporations–from mobile, consumer electronics and IoT manufacturers, to service providers and enterprise software platform companies. These products include the world’s leading digital rights management (DRM), software tamper resistance, and technologies to enable private data exchanges for various verticals including energy, entertainment, retail/marketing, automotive, fintech, and IoT. Founded in 1990, Intertrust is headquartered in Silicon Valley with regional offices in London, Tokyo, Mumbai, Bangalore, Beijing, Seoul, Riga, and Tallinn. The company has a legacy of invention, and its fundamental contributions in the areas of computer security and digital trust are globally recognized. Intertrust holds hundreds of patents that are key to Internet security, trust, and privacy management components of operating systems, trusted mobile code and networked operating environments, web services, and cloud computing. Additional information is available at intertrust.com, or follow us on Twitter or LinkedIn.
