Vic Hyder is a founding member and Chief Strategy Officer for Silent Circle (SC). A retired Navy SEAL Commander with a 20-year distinguished service record, Vic is clearly a professional in the world of State, personal and communications security.
Despite his busy international travel schedule, GBN managed to catch up with Vic by phone, who was in Miami. We discussed his role, and the burning questions that surround the products provided by his company, which provides encrypted voice and data messaging.
Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, Silent Circle has been operating for over four years. Vic explained that the company was created by three US citizens, who made the strategic decision to locate in this specific region. “Switzerland’s central location provides an excellent geographical base for managing Global business, and more importantly, the country enjoys some of the safest data confidentiality laws, as written into its constitution.” Today, SC is present in four main locations (two in the USA, two in Europe) with datacenter locations in various cities. The company is already almost 100 strong and growing.
Company strategy
Vic explained the company has a real global perspective on business, looking at supporting enterprises and governments and their agencies all over the world, in keeping potentially sensitive voice and data transmissions secure and confidential.
When asked if the company’s products could be seen as trying to hide away customer’s data, Vic stressed that the aim of Silent Circle was to provide “privacy, not anonymity.”
Vic is one of several highly qualified IT and security experts working in a company that sees the protection of transmitted data as a must in today’s society. Clearly, today communications are very technically advanced and constantly under threat of attack. Vic himself says he has worn several hats in developing and implementing the company’s strategy, including operations, sales, marketing, training, customer service and more.
Product targets and availability
When questioned about the potential for the ‘wrong people’ getting access to SC devices, Vic was quick to express his own feelings. Firmly stating that he didn’t spend 20 years of his life chasing ‘these people’ in order to now hand them a device which would help them undo his work, he affirmed that his former employers and colleagues do solid work for the good of national and international security.
As for the availability of the products on the open market, Vic went on to explain that the whole buying process of Silent Circle products is managed through its own purchasing platform. Subscriptions to SC Apps are not available on the more well used App Store websites that allow just anyone access to download software. Vetting of client purchasing is taken seriously by the company and adheres to the whole ethos of keeping both services and data as secure as possible.
How it works
Products offered by the Silent Circle brand are based around their current flagship the Blackphone 2, (an improved version of their original Blackphone) which enables encrypted Voice over IP (VoIP) and messaging services (text and files).
Silent Circle’s App version of their encrypted services can be used on both standard Android and iOS phones. This can help soften the blow of the financial commitment needed, even by larger corporations. Companies can therefore provide employees with the best software protection on the market leveraging a zero-touch deployment (meaning no physical intervention, just a software update) with single-sign on and without having to manage the logistics and costs related to replacing all employees’ devices.
Silent Circle’s cloud-based network infrastructure provides a fully-encrypted service for its dedicated Blackphones or App-enabled mobiles, up to the closest Silent Circle server (AWS).
SC Servers are located in key datacenters around the world. If the person being called does not have the same hardware or SC App as the caller, the call is then translated into an unencrypted PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) call from the relevant SC datacenter onwards. That means that the call is encrypted inside the country from which the caller is calling, not in the receiving country. However, if the called user also has the SC service, the whole path between the callers is fully encrypted. This means that the device is still potentially lifesaving if used by people operating in politically unstable and volatile environments.
Blackphone 2 provides full device encryption by default through harnessing the company's operating system (Silent OS) and Google Android technology.
At the heart of Silent OS, Blackphone 2 has a unique, built-in Security Center that enables users to easily manage their privacy and security settings in one place. Users can control and fine-tune the individual app permissions and the data to which the apps have access, all while ensuring they need not compromise on the device's cutting edge smartphone functionality. The Blackphone 2 also comes with a remote wipe setting, should the phone be lost or stolen.
Through Silent OS' "Spaces" function, the Blackphone 2 also provides users with the ability to build separate, secure environments for their critical business data, personal information and even social applications within the same device.
Silent Phone app: Allowing users to make private voice and video calls in HD clarity over a peer to-peer encrypted VoIP service. An unlimited encrypted text service with file transfer capability. Includes a burn functionality that destroys selected messages automatically
Silent Manager: Web based tools that make setup and maintenance of all devices and software simple.
The Blackphone 2 currently retails at $799.
Software packages are from $9.99 to $39.99 per month.
The future of Silent Circle
Unsurprisingly, Vic is very enthusiastic about promoting the need for the highly secure communications services offered by Silent Circle. We asked him how the business was coming along. “Keeping in mind that SC’s targets and customer base is quite specific, I have overseen an increase in quarterly sales by 150% in five months,” Vic replied confidently. In addition, recent concerns over incidents of leaked information (Edward Snowden) and access to confidential files (Panama Papers) can only help the Silent Circle business model to develop further.
Vic informed us that new releases of the Blackphone software and associated Apps (currently version 3.0) will continue in the coming months. This, as well as the boom in data security needs, is bound to keep Vic and his colleagues quite busy in the near future.
To find out what’s new with Silent Circle:
Silent Circle website: https://www.silentcircle.com/
Photos and press information thanks to Silent Circle.
