Co-founder & CEO
Tresorit
Istvan Lam is a cryptographer, computer scientist, and entrepreneur. He is co-founder & CEO of Tresorit, the cloud encryption company. Istvan earned his MSc degree with highest honors at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BUTE). As a researcher of cryptographic key sharing and distributed systems at CrySys Labs, Hungary and the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, he specialized in cryptography engineering. Still at university, Istvan co-founded Tresorit, the cloud encryption company. Tresorit now provides end-to-end encrypted file sync & sharing and collaboration for more than 10,000 businesses globally. In 2016, Istvan was featured on Forbes Europe’s 30 Under 30 in Technology list as an inspiring young leader in technology. In 2017, he received the Digital Solutions special prize at the EY – Entrepreneur of the Year awards. As an advocate of privacy as a human right, Istvan is a regular speaker at events to raise awareness on the role of encryption in data security, and the challenges of creating policies and technologies that protect citizen’s privacy (examples: AccessNow RightsCon Brussels, EU Tech Alliance events in Brussels, EU Parliament Privacy Panel, Brain Bar Budapest).
Research publications:
Invitation-Oriented TGDH: Key Management for Dynamic Groups in an Asynchronous Communication Model. Published in 41st International Conference on Parallel Processing Workshops, 2012
Big Brother Knows Your Friends: On Privacy of Social Communities in Pervasive Networks. Published in International Conference on Pervasive Computing, 2012.
Patents:
Method and system for handling of group sharing in a distributed data storage, particularly in P2P environment
Patent issued Feb 7, 2017. Patent US 9563783 https://www.google.com/patents/US9563783
This patent is the key management technology used in Tresorit. It presents a solution for having and sharing independent folders without compromising end-to-end encryption. The invention relates to a method and system for handling of group sharing in a distributed data storage, particularly P2P environment, where online unexploited storage capacity and bandwidth of users of a community connected to a network or the Internet are utilized. Files of a user are cut into pieces which are then distributed among other online users.
Client-side encryption with DRM
Patent issued Sep 8, 2015. Patent number US 9129095 https://www.google.com/patents/US9129095
A technique for extending security to a data object (e.g., a document, a file, a message, etc.) once it has been shared and during collaboration with others who have access rights to that data object. The approach combines group key-based client-side encryption to secure the data object as it travels from a user's computer, to the cloud, and to a chosen collaborator's computer, together with a digital rights management (DRM) layer.
Selected writings:
4 Reasons You Need Developers with Cybersecurity Skills in All Tech Teams – Entrepreneur
7 Basics for Keeping Your Company's Data Safe – Entrepreneur
To Encrypt or Not to Encrypt? – Tresorit blog
What is Zero-Knowledge Encryption? – Tresorit blog