Taher Elgamal Explained

Taher A. Elgamal
Birth Date:18 August 1955
Birth Place:Cairo, Egypt
Nationality:American, Egyptian
Field:Cryptography
Work Institution:Salesforce.com
Alma Mater:Cairo University (BSc)
Stanford University (MS, PhD)
Doctoral Advisor:Martin Hellman
Known For:SSL
Public-key
ElGamal
Discrete logarithm cryptography
Prizes:RSA Conference Lifetime Achievement Award (2009)
Marconi Prize (2019)
National Academy of Engineering (2022)

Taher Elgamal (Arabic: طاهر الجمل) (born 18 August 1955) is an Egyptian cryptographer and entrepreneur. He has served as the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Security at Salesforce since 2013.[1] Prior to that, he was the founder and CEO of Securify and the director of engineering at RSA Security. From 1995 to 1998, he was the chief scientist at Netscape Communications. He has been described as the "father of SSL" for the work he did in computer security while working at Netscape, which helped in establishing a private and secure communications on the Internet.[2]

Elgamal's 1985 paper entitled "A Public Key Cryptosystem and A Signature Scheme Based on Discrete Logarithms" proposed the design of the ElGamal discrete log cryptosystem and of the ElGamal signature scheme.[3] The latter scheme became the basis for Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA) adopted by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as the Digital Signature Standard (DSS).

Biography

Early life

According to an article on Medium,[4] Elgamal's first love was mathematics. Although he came to the United States to pursue a PhD in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, he said that "cryptography was the most beautiful use of math he'd ever seen".

Elgamal earned a BSc from Cairo University in 1977, and MS and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1981 and 1984, respectively. Martin Hellman was his dissertation advisor.[5]

Career

Elgamal joined the technical staff at HP Labs in 1984. He served as chief scientist at Netscape Communications from 1995 to 1998,[6] where he was a driving force behind Secure Sockets Layer.[7] He also was the director of engineering at RSA Security Inc. before founding Securify in 1998 and becoming its chief executive officer. According to an interview with Elgamal,[8] when Securify was acquired by Kroll-O'Gara,[9] he became the president of its information security group. After helping Securify spin out from Kroll-O'Gara,[10] Taher served as the company's chief technology officer (CTO) from 2001 to 2004.[11] In late 2008, Securify was acquired by Secure Computing[12] and is now part of McAfee.[13] In October 2006, he joined Tumbleweed Communications as a CTO.[14] Tumbleweed was acquired in 2008 by Axway Inc. Elgamal is now a CTO for security at Salesforce.com.[15]

Entrepreneurial ventures

Elgamal is a co-founder of NokNok Labs[16] and InfoSec Global. He serves as a director of Vindicia, Inc.,[17] which provides online payment services, Zix Corporation, which provides email encryption services, and Bay Dynamics.[18] He has served as an adviser to Cyphort, Bitglass, Onset Ventures, Glenbrook Partners, PGP corporation, Arcot Systems, Finjan, Actiance, Symplified, and Zetta. He served as Chief Security Officer of Axway, Inc. He is vice chairman of SecureMisr.

Executive roles

Elgamal has also held executive roles at technology and security companies, including

Recognition

Publications

As a scholar, Elgamal published 4 articles:

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Taher Elgamel LinkedIn .
  2. Web site: Messmer . Ellen . 2012-12-04 . Father of SSL, Dr. Taher Elgamal, finds fast-moving IT projects in the Middle East . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20200622112805/https://www.networkworld.com/article/2161851/father-of-ssl--dr--taher-elgamal--finds-fast-moving-it-projects-in-the-middle-east.html . 2020-06-22 . 2020-06-22 . Network World.
  3. Elgamal . Taher . 1985 . A Public key Cryptosystem and A Signature Scheme based on discrete Logarithms . IEEE Transactions on Information Theory . 31 . 4 . 469–472 . 10.1109/TIT.1985.1057074 . 10.1.1.476.4791 . 2973271 .
  4. Web site: Solving Puzzles to Protect the Cloud: CTO Taher Elgamal on His Role at Salesforce and the Future of Cryptography. Lindeman. Laura. May 16, 2019. Salesforce Engineering Blog: Medium. October 17, 2019.
  5. Book: Mollin, Richard A. . Codes: The Guide to Secrecy from Ancient to Modern Times . Boca Raton . Chapman & Hall . 2005 . 978-1-58488-470-5 . 185 .
  6. News: Netscape's Chief Scientist Leaves Firm To Form a Computer-Security Start-Up. Journal. Don ClarkStaff Reporter of The Wall Street. 1998-09-29. Wall Street Journal. 2019-10-17. en-US. 0099-9660.
  7. Web site: Cryptographers Paul Kocher and Taher Elgamal Awarded the 2019 Marconi Prize. 2019-03-13. www.businesswire.com. en. 2019-10-17.
  8. Web site: Serial Entrepreneur: Taher Elgamal (Part 9). 2007-04-01. Sramana Mitra. en-US. 2019-10-17.
  9. News: Kroll-O'Gara Acquires Securify For About $64 Million in Stock. Reporter. a Wall Street Journal Staff. 1999-01-04. Wall Street Journal. 2019-10-17. en-US. 0099-9660.
  10. News: Kroll-O'Gara announces private financing of Securify. Cincinnati Business Courier. 2021-04-27.
  11. Web site: Dr. Taher Elgamal Joins Zix Corporation's Board of Directors. Zixcorp Blog. 2021-04-27.
  12. Web site: Securify Acquired By Secure Computing. www.silicontap.com. 2019-10-17.
  13. Web site: McAfee, Inc. Completes Acquisition of Secure Computing. 2008-11-18. www.businesswire.com. en. 2019-10-17.
  14. Web site: Taher Elgamal joins Tumbleweed as Chief Technology Officer. https://web.archive.org/web/20090924220510/http://www.tumbleweed.com/news/press_releases/2006/2006-10-03a.html. 2009-09-24.
  15. Web site: Renowned Cryptographer Taher Elgamal is Our New CTO of Security. Salesforce Blog. en. 2019-10-17.
  16. Web site: Startup Nok Nok Labs pitches strong new authentication process. Messmer. Ellen. 2013-02-12. Network World. en. 2019-10-17.
  17. Web site: Taher A Elgamal, Evolution Equity Partners: Profile and Biography . October 17, 2019. Bloomberg Markets.
  18. Web site: Zix Corp.. www.marketwatch.com. en. 2019-10-17.
  19. Web site: Salesforce Loses Another Security Leader in Executive Exodus. January 11, 2023. Bloomberg.
  20. Web site: RSA Conference Recognizes Axway CSO Dr. Taher Elgamal for Lifetime Achievement in Information Security. 2009-04-22. Reuters. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20131110185021/http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/04/22/idUS122120+22-Apr-2009+BW20090422. 2013-11-10. 2013-03-20.
  21. Web site: Cryptographers Paul Kocher and Taher Elgamal Awarded The 2019 Marconi Prize.
  22. Web site: National Academy of Engineering Elects 111 Members and 22 International Members . 2022-03-25 . NAE Website.
  23. Elgamal. T.. July 1985. A subexponential-time algorithm for computing discrete logarithms over GF(p²). IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. 31. 4. 473–481. 10.1109/TIT.1985.1057075.
  24. Book: ElGamal, Taher. Advances in Cryptology — CRYPTO '85 Proceedings . On Computing Logarithms over Finite Fields . 1986. Williams. Hugh C.. 218. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. en. Springer Berlin Heidelberg. 396–402. 10.1007/3-540-39799-x_28. 9783540397991. free.
  25. Elgamal. Taher. 2009-11-01. The new predicaments of security practitioners. Computer Fraud & Security. 2009. 11. 12–14. 10.1016/S1361-3723(09)70140-X. 1361-3723.

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