Type: Service
Category: Privacy
Sub-categories: Secure Communication, Secure Collaboration

Crypho: A (Software-as-a-Service) messaging and collaboration tool for organizations with high security requirements

Solution (Value Proposition)
Crypho is a messaging and collaboration tool for organizations with high security requirements. Typical users are law enforcement, government and the financial industry. It is also used by human rights groups and journalists around the world.

Crypho is a Software-as-a-Service. It runs on desktop and laptop computers as well as mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.

It provides customers with an easy-to-use way of communicating confidentially through messaging, chat and file sharing. It facilitates faster and more secure communications with end-to-end encryption. In addition to keeping information confidential and secure, end-to-end encryption also ensures compliance with laws and regulations and avoids the complexities and legal headaches that usually come with cloud services.

Since all data is encrypted on the client, and only the customers have the encryption keys, no-one can intercept and access the data. Not even Crypho’s own staff. Rather than offering “stronger security” this changes the security paradigm completely. We call it a Zero-knowledge system.

With a zero-knowledge system, organizations can use a centrally hosted system through the Internet, rather than having to host it in their own internal infrastructure.

Since Crypho can be used securely over the Internet, this makes it easier to collaborate and share between organizations, for example in international law enforcement collaboration. Organizations and companies can use it without taking special security precautions or preparations. Both from smartphones and computers. With a Zero-knowledge system, there is no risk of data leakage in cases of the vendor being hacked, unfaithful employees or government interventions.

Crypho combines high security and strong cryptographic requirements with the approachability and ease of use that is common in consumer applications. This makes it possible to establish a secure and trusted communications channel between companies in a matter of minutes.

Key Differentiators
Existing high-security communications software has traditionally focused on the military and government markets, and secret communications. This has placed strong requirements on specialized hardware, software and processes, and subsequently carried with it a high cost (in terms of money or in terms of overhead) to communicate. With a modern realization that there is a large area of communications where data should be protected from the public, but adversaries are not foreign intelligence organizations, governments are opening up to the idea of communication tools that are faster and easier to use, and can run on off-the-shelf hardware.

Crypho can run on the user’s normal smartphone or PC New people can be enrolled and create strong cryptographic keys in a matter of minutes. Without training. Secure and verified communications channels can be established between companies, networks and countries in a matter of minutes. There is no need for pre-installed software.

Supporting Technology (the 'magic')
Crypho is an end-user-facing product for providing people in companies or organizations with an easy way of communicating confidentially. It unites Real time messaging and sharing, Exemplary ease of use and Super-high-security. Crypho is a web-application for confidential sharing and communication between businesses. The application is a hosted web service, and runs in a normal web browser. All messages are asynchronous and persistent, so that even if they are real time, they stay around so team people can see what their team-members said while they themselves were offline. Members can share files seamlessly in groups.

Traditionally, web applications are architected around a fat server application that serves content to thin clients (browsers). Crypho departs from this model and is designed to work with a thin server which remains as agnostic as possible to the content and merely stores and distributes it to rich client applications (running in the browser) that do most of the work.

The server stores messages and files to ensure users can access them at will. The server is blind to the contents of data, however. There is no way to inspect what is stored. The client, on the other hand, is an advanced application, written as a single page web application, a desktop app and a mobile app. The client deals with cryptographic key management, messaging, encryption and the user interface for interacting with other users of the system. Crypho manages encryption keys transparently to the users. Crypho is built on top of a stack of well-proven, scalable and robust Open Source software and cryptographic research from Stanford University.

Crypho Team Experience & Contact:



Geir Bækholt, Founder
15 years Internet industry experience - as designer, developer, consultant, leader and 10 years as CEO. Leader of the Plone CMS project, one of the 2% largest Open Source projects worldwide. Broad board experience from both companies and nonprofits. Has built intranets and collaboration systems for clients such as Continental Airlines, Nokia,United Nations, UK National Health Service, the UK military, Oxford university and the US
Library of Congress.



Yiorgis Gozadinos, PhD, FOUNDER
Strong academic background combined with 15+ years of experience in building solutions to big problems as developer, researcher, project manager and CTO. Highly
qualified in areas spanning software architecture, security, real-time communications on the web. Has worked for both small companies as well as organisations such as the European Network and Information Security Agency or the European Space Agency, and founded three companies.