Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Application Security

Moxie Marlinspike Steps Down as Signal CEO

Celebrated cryptographer Moxie Marlinspike is stepping down as chief executive at Signal, temporarily turning the reins of the popular encrypted messaging platform to WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton.

Celebrated cryptographer Moxie Marlinspike is stepping down as chief executive at Signal, temporarily turning the reins of the popular encrypted messaging platform to WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton.

Marlinspike, who created Signal and led its growth into becoming a must-use encrypted messaging app, said Signal would begin the search for a new chief executive immediately.

He said Acton, the WhatsApp co-founder who helped to bankroll Marlinspike’s Signal Foundation and sits on the non-profit board, has volunteered to serve as interim CEO during the search period.

[ READIs the ‘Great Resignation’ Impacting Cybersecurity? ]

Marlinspike, who spent a decade working on the secure app, said he is “very comfortable replacing myself as CEO” because of the management team in place and the opportunity to expand the company’s success.

“I’ve been talking with candidates over the last few months, but want to open up the search with this announcement in order to help find the best person for the next decade of Signal,” Marlinspike added.

Back in 2018, Marlinspike and Acton teamed up to launch the Signal Technology Foundation, with Acton investing $50 million in the non-profit. 

Related: Signal Working on Improving Anti-Spam Capabilities

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

Related: Signal Rushes to Patch Serious Eavesdropping Vulnerability

Related: Signal Provides Only Two Timestamps as Response to Grand Jury Subpoena

Written By

Click to comment

Trending

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

Join the session as we discuss the challenges and best practices for cybersecurity leaders managing cloud identities.

Register

SecurityWeek’s Ransomware Resilience and Recovery Summit helps businesses to plan, prepare, and recover from a ransomware incident.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Application Security

Cycode, a startup that provides solutions for protecting software source code, emerged from stealth mode on Tuesday with $4.6 million in seed funding.

Vulnerabilities

Less than a week after announcing that it would suspended service indefinitely due to a conflict with an (at the time) unnamed security researcher...

Cybercrime

The changing nature of what we still generally call ransomware will continue through 2023, driven by three primary conditions.

Data Protection

The cryptopocalypse is the point at which quantum computing becomes powerful enough to use Shor’s algorithm to crack PKI encryption.

Cybercrime

A recently disclosed vBulletin vulnerability, which had a zero-day status for roughly two days last week, was exploited in a hacker attack targeting the...

Identity & Access

Zero trust is not a replacement for identity and access management (IAM), but is the extension of IAM principles from people to everyone and...

Data Breaches

OpenAI has confirmed a ChatGPT data breach on the same day a security firm reported seeing the use of a component affected by an...

Artificial Intelligence

The CRYSTALS-Kyber public-key encryption and key encapsulation mechanism recommended by NIST for post-quantum cryptography has been broken using AI combined with side channel attacks.