About Us
Our Mission
Our Portfolio, Made in Germany
All Nitrokeys are produced in Germany and thus enable a high level of trust. In addition, all Nitrokeys are operating system independent, have a robust and twist-proof USB connector and (optional) a Secure Element for highest security requirements.
Besides our Nitrokey hardware products we offer services and consulting. This includes customer-specific system customization of Nitrokey products and their integration in your own system environments. Furthermore, we help you with concept, development and certification of your specific security solutions.
In addition to that, our portfolio consists of Subscription and Fulfillment Business Services, the secure laptop NitroPad and the NitroPhone for high security requirements, the messenger NitroChat, the video conference service Nitrokey Meet, and the data destruction service NitroShred.
Security Requires Open Source
The Company
Our Story
Our roots reach back to 2008, when our founder and CEO Jan Suhr and two of his friends had the idea to create an open source USB key called “Crypto Stick”. While traveling, the three friends found themselves encrypting emails in internet cafés whose computers you normally do not want to share your private cryptographic keys with. In that moment, the idea for Nitrokey as a hardware solution for secure usage of email encryption was born. In August 2008, the non-profit open source project Crypto Stick was established. Version 1.0 of the Crypto Stick was released on December 27, 2009.
After some years of producing the Crypto Stick successfully and a lot of positive user and expert feedback, in late 2014, we decided to leave the just-for-fun-zone in order to start a real business in January 2015. We entered a new phase of the project with improved products, faster development and professional support.