Alec David Edward Muffett (born 22 April 1968) is an Anglo-American

internet security Internet security is a branch of computer security. It encompasses the Internet, browser security, web site security, and network security as it applies to other applications or operating systems as a whole. Its objective is to establish rules ...

expert and

software engineer Software engineering is a branch of both computer science and engineering focused on designing, developing, testing, and maintaining software applications. It involves applying engineering principles and computer programming expertise to develop ...

Career

Muffett joined

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...

in 1992, working initially as a

systems administrator An IT administrator, system administrator, sysadmin, or admin is a person who is responsible for the upkeep, configuration, and reliable operation of computer systems, especially multi-user computers, such as Server (computing), servers. The ...

. He rose through the ranks to become the principal engineer for security, a position which he held until he was retrenched, with many others, in 2009 (shortly before Oracle acquired Sun). While at Sun he was one of the researchers who worked on the

factorization In mathematics, factorization (or factorisation, see American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), English spelling differences) or factoring consists of writing a number or another mathematical object as a p ...

of the 512 bit RSA Challenge Number; RSA-155 was successfully factorized in August 1999.RSA-155 is factored!
, rsa.com; accessed March 23, 2017. He created Crack, the original password cracker for

Unix Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...

, and for the CrackLib password-integrity testing library. In 2015, Muffett was named as one of the top six influential security thinkers by ''

SC Magazine Haymarket Media Group is a private media company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It has publications in the consumer, business and customer sectors, both print and online. It operates exhibitions allied to its own publications, and pr ...

''. Muffett assisted in creating .onion websites for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

,'' Wikipedia,

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...

, Brave,

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

, and

Reddit Reddit ( ) is an American Proprietary software, proprietary social news news aggregator, aggregation and Internet forum, forum Social media, social media platform. Registered users (commonly referred to as "redditors") submit content to the ...

References

External links

Personal blog
{{DEFAULTSORT:Muffett, Alec Computer security specialists 1968 births Living people Alumni of University College London Place of birth missing (living people) American software engineers British software engineers Sun Microsystems people InfoSec Twitter