Sun Appoints Diffie as CSO

In April, Sun Microsystems appointed Whitfield Diffie as Chief Security Officer for Santa Clara, Calif.-based software giant. Diffie oversees internal security as well as a newly created global security program office, the goal of which is to evangelize Suns security product offerings and key issues concerning technology security. Diffie, an authority on cryptography and security technology, is the inventor of the public key encryption concept that secures most online transactions. Prior to joining Sun in 1991, Diffie spent 12 years as manager of secure systems research at Northern Telecom. Diffie received a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1965. Since 1993, Diffie has worked largely in public policy, in the area of cryptography.