Virtru Announces General Availability of its Encrypted Email and Digital Privacy Service

PRESS RELEASE

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Jan. 27, 2015 – Virtru, the company that makes it easy for anyone to keep digital information private, today announced the general availability of Virtru, the free encryption service for emails and attachments, and its advanced offering, Virtru Pro for business users.  Individuals, businesses, and other institutions can now protect and share sensitive information easily and affordably from directly within their existing email service.

In beta since January 2014, Virtru has seen demand surge for its practical, affordable, and easy-to-use email encryption and digital privacy service.  In addition to regulated industries like healthcare and financial services, the company has experienced widespread demand across industry sectors. From dental practices, to restaurants, to state and local governments, individuals and organizations are securing their emails and attachments with Virtru.  As the Sony mega-hack made clear, unprotected email can expose an organization’s most sensitive documents and intellectual property but also personal conversations that can be just as damaging.

“With a growing base of 750 employees, the amount of sensitive data we work with is only increasing,” said Matthew Joseph, Technology and Systems Director for FIG AND OLIVE restaurants. “We needed to get an email encryption solution up-and-running quickly without disrupting our business. Virtru was able to easily meet our aggressive timeline and its ease-of-use and powerful functionality continues to exceed our employees’ expectations.”

Designed by former NSA cryptographers, Virtru offers free end-to-end encryption that takes only seconds to download and is seamlessly added into all major email platforms, including Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Outlook, Mac Mail or available as an Android or iOS app. For organizations that have moved to cloud-based email platforms like Google Apps for Work, Virtru Pro provides an added level of data security without the high cost or complexity of an enterprise security product. Unlike traditional email encryption services, Virtru encrypts email content and attachments right on the user’s device – only the sender and the receiver can decrypt the message and no third party ever has access to the content. Virtru has made key exchange and email encryption so easy and so integrated that all a user needs to do is flip on the Virtru switch to send a secure message to anyone, anywhere. 

According to the latest research conducted by the Pew Center Internet Project, 61 percent of American workers say that email is “very important” for doing their jobs. This number hasn’t moved in 13 years, indicating that email is a business mainstay. As the Sony hack demonstrated, email is vulnerable to attack.  Human error such as hitting “reply all” by mistake or having a private message intended for one forwarded to many has become commonplace.  Virtru allows everyone to guard against these risky behaviors that can inadvertently expose a company’s most critical business assets and control how messages and attachments are distributed, who sees them and for how long.  While Virtru’s basic encryption service is free, with its advance Virtru Pro version individuals and businesses can encrypt messages and attachments with ease, plus revoke sent messages at any time, control forwarding, and set email expiration dates. No other encryption software solution makes this possible.

“While some have suggested that we replace traditional email, Virtru has set out to make email better – more safe, more private, and more controllable,” said John Ackerly, Co-Founder and CEO of Virtru.  “Email is here to stay and we are excited to release our full-featured product and to continue our mission to make it simple, convenient, and practical for everyone to protect their communications.”  

Virtru has been recognized for its technical innovation and unique approach to digital privacy. The company was named an Audience Choice award winner at the Privacy, Identity and Innovation (pii2014) conference, Silicon Valley’s premier event for exploring the future of privacy and identity. Virtru was also named a finalist for the South By Southwest (SXSW) 2015 Interactive Innovation Award and was selected to participate in the Startup Showcase at the 17th Annual MIT Venture Capital and Innovation Conference.

Virtru’s basic encryption service for emails and attachments is free and can be downloaded at https://www.virtru.com/get-secure-email.  For individuals and businesses interested in advanced privacy protection, Virtru Pro is available at a limited introductory price of $2.50 per month.  A free 14-day trial of Virtru Pro is available at www.virtru.com.  

About Virtru
Virtru is the first company to make email privacy accessible to everyone.  With a single plug-in, Virtru empowers individuals and businesses to control who receives, reviews, and retains their digital information -- wherever it travels, throughout its lifespan.  The company has set a new standard for digital privacy based on the Trusted Data Format (TDF), created by Virtru Co-Founder Will Ackerly and used by the intelligence community to secure some of the nation's most sensitive data.  Virtru requires no special skills or knowledge, supports all popular email and file types, and can be used on a PC, Mac or mobile device.  To learn more about the company, visit http://www.virtru.com/ and follow @virtruprivacy on Twitter.