|
|
|
|
|
|
Gemalto is a French multinational company with offices in 44 countries
and approx. 12,000 people on the payroll. The company supplies a range
of security products such as bank payment cards and access tokens and
is the world's largest supplier of SIM cards for mobile phones.
The company was formed in 2006 from the merger of Axalto and Gemplus
International and has its statutory seat in Amsterdam (Netherlands).
In 2012 Gemalto reported a revenue of 2.246 billion.
The core business of the Gemalto is to protect data, transactions
and identities.
According to their corporate website [1], Gemalto delivers
security services to more than 30,000 businesses, 3000 financial
institutions and 2 billion people in
190+ countries, more than any other company in the world.
The company secures more than 80%
of the world's intra-bank fund transfers.
On 8 August 2014 it was announced that Gemalto was to acquire
SafeNet,
an American company that specializes in data encryption, authentication
and software protection, for US$890 million [2].
On 8 January 2015, the deal was finalized, making SafeNet a full
subsidary of Gemalto [3].
SafeNet was founded in 1983
by two former NSA Engineers and has since taken over numerous companies,
including Gretag,
Pijnenburg Securealink,
Datakey and Rainbow Technologies.
On 19 February 2015, Gemalto was in the news because the American
National Security Agency (NSA)
and their British counterpart GCHQ
had allegedly hacked the company's secure database and acquired
the cryptographic keys of millions of mobile phone SIM cards [4].
Although it is known from documents revealed by whistle-blower
Edward Snowden
that Gemalto was targeted by the NSA and GCHQ,
other companies were on the target list as well and it is currently
unknown how many keys were actually stolen or how efficient
the application of such keys would be [5].
|
|
|
|
Any links shown in red are currently unavailable.
If you like the information on this website, why not make a donation?
© Crypto Museum. Last changed: Sunday, 08 November 2020 - 11:36 CET.
|
 |
|
|
|
![Gemalto logo. Copyright Gemalto [1].](img/gemalto_logo.gif){kind=logo}