Security start-ups spin out of Washington intelligence community

By Mohana Ravindranath

The surveillance factory that is the National Security Agency produces more than secrets. It also drives the development of new technologies, some of which are spilling out into the world at large.

Often the entrepreneurs with the inside track are former government employees who had a hand in creating the technology and realized that the advances might find a larger market among Internet users and businesses.

Former NSA Internet security architect Will Ackerly, for instance, left the agency in 2012 to found VirTru, an e-mail security start-up, with his brother John Ackerly, who was associate director of the National Economic Council and director of the Office of Policy and Strategic Planning at the Commerce Department under President George W. Bush. The two run the business out of an office in Dupont Circle and are publicly launching a free version of their product this week. 

Read full article here from The Washington Post