Netscape's Chief Scientist Leaves To Form Computer-Security Start-Up
Dow Jones Online News, Tuesday, September 29, 1998 at 01:02
(Published on Monday, September 28, 1998 at 21:58)
By Don Clark, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
Netscape Communications Corp.'s chief scientist, Taher Elgamal, has
left the software company to form a Silicon Valley computer-security
start-up with some high-profile financial backers.
The Egyptian-born scientist is known for inventing a data-scrambling
technology adapted by the U.S. government for creating digital
signatures, a technique for verifying the identity of people who send
electronic messages. At Netscape, Mr. Elgamal helped develop a standard
encryption system that is built into most software for browsing the
World Wide Web.
But Mr. Elgamal's Mountain View, Calif., company, called Securify
Inc., isn't focusing on new security technology. Instead, the company is
offering services to companies trying to protect their networks against
attack by thieves and hackers. Among other things, it will assess
corporate systems by attempting to crack into them, respond to security
emergencies, and help companies set policies and deploy security tools
to protect their systems.
"There are a lot of product companies that provide solutions for
different things," Mr. Elgamal said. "But there is no overall
architecture for what a network should look like from a security
standpoint, so no one knows if they have designed their network
correctly."
Security consultancies aren't a new idea. Until recently,
venture-capital firms were reluctant to bankroll technology-service
companies generally, betting that few would ever become large enough to
become financially significant.
But the explosive growth of financial transactions on the Web, and
the increasing incidence of security failures, has convinced some
investors that a consultancy with a strong reputation could achieve a
size comparable with the Big Six accounting firms. George Zachary, a
partner at the venture firm Mohr Davidow Ventures said it invested in
Securify on the belief that it could become a company with $500 million
in revenue.
"The concept is to take some star guys and create a company around
them," added Magalena Yesil, a partner with another investor, U.S.
Venture Partners. "Companies that now hire accounting firms to do a
financial audit may routinely hire security firms to do a security
audit."
Some prominent Silicon Valley executives also have put their own
money into the deal, including James Barksdale, Netscape's chief
executive officer; Eric Benhamou, chief executive of 3Com Corp.; James
Bidzos, chief executive of RSA Data Security Inc., a unit of Security
Dynamics Inc.; and Marc Benioff, a senior vice president of Oracle Corp.
Including the individual investors and the two venture firms, Securify
has raised $5.5 million so far.
Mr. Elgamal, 43 years old, made a name for himself in the mid-1980s
with a doctoral thesis at Stanford University that proposed a new type
of "public-key" encryption, a way of sending private messages to people
who might not have a prior relationship with the sender. He later worked
for RSA before moving to Netscape. Securify's management team also
includes Mark Chen, who helped build security safeguards in Intuit
Inc.'s high-volume Web site, and Mark Seiden, a prominent security
expert who participated in the pursuit of Kevin Metnick, a notorious
computer hacker.
A spokeswoman for Netscape said Mr. Elgamal parted on good terms. His
departure shouldn't be seen as a blow to the company, she added, because
other top technologists played a broader role in technology development
than the chief scientist.
Copyright (c) 1998 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. |
