Neal Creighton is an American

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...

based in

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. He was one of the co-founders and CEO of

certificate authority In cryptography, a certificate authority or certification authority (CA) is an entity that stores, signs, and issues digital certificates. A digital certificate certifies the ownership of a public key by the named subject of the certificate. Thi ...

GeoTrust GeoTrust is a digital certificate provider. The GeoTrust brand was bought by Symantec from Verisign in 2010, but agreed to sell the certificate business (including GeoTrust) in August 2017 to private equity and growth capital firm Thoma Bravo L ...

in 2001, and is co-inventor of the

domain-validated certificate A domain validated certificate (DV) is an X.509 public key certificate typically used for Transport Layer Security (TLS) where the domain name of the applicant is validated by proving some control over a DNS domain. Domain validated certificates ...

patent issued in 2006 which method accounts for 70 percent of all SSL certificates on the Internet. In 2006, GeoTrust was the 2nd largest certificate authority in the world with 26.7 percent market share according to independent survey company

Netcraft Netcraft is an Internet services company based in London, England. The company provides cybercrime disruption services across a range of industries. History Netcraft was founded by Mike Prettejohn in Bath, Somerset. The company provides web s ...

. He was also cofounder of RatePoint, Inc., which was named the MITX 2010 Social Media Company of the Year for

New England New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...

. Creighton currently serves as

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television *'' Præsident ...

and CEO of CounterTack, Inc., a

security software Computer security software or cybersecurity software is any computer program designed to influence information security. This is often taken in the context of defending computer systems or data, yet can incorporate programs designed specifically ...

firm A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of legal people, whether Natural person, natural, Juridical person, juridical or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members ...

that focuses on preventing

cyber-attacks A cyberattack (or cyber attack) occurs when there is an unauthorized action against computer infrastructure that compromises the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of its content. The rising dependence on increasingly complex and inte ...

Early life and education

Creighton's father, Neal Creighton, Sr. was a career

military officer An officer is a person who holds a position of authority as a member of an armed force or uniformed service. Broadly speaking, "officer" means a commissioned officer, a non-commissioned officer (NCO), or a warrant officer. However, absent c ...

and Major General in the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...

known for his service during the Tet Offensive of 1968. The younger Creighton attended US Army Ranger School and

West Point The United States Military Academy (USMA), commonly known as West Point, is a United States service academies, United States service academy in West Point, New York that educates cadets for service as Officer_(armed_forces)#United_States, comm ...

, and served for five years as an officer in the United States Army. He was an armor platoon leader and saw action during the

Gulf War , combatant2 = , commander1 = , commander2 = , strength1 = Over 950,000 soldiers3,113 tanks1,800 aircraft2,200 artillery systems , page = https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-PEMD-96- ...

. Creighton was referenced by

Seymour Hersh Seymour Myron Hersh (born April 8, 1937) is an American investigative journalist and political writer. He gained recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War, for which he received the 1970 Pulitzer ...

in his controversial New Yorker article, “Overwhelming Force” for his part in battle for Jalibah Airfield that took place on February 27, 1991. After his service in the Army, Creighton attended

Northwestern University Northwestern University (NU) is a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1851 to serve the historic Northwest Territory, it is the oldest University charter, chartered university in ...

, where he received a

Juris Doctor A Juris Doctor, Doctor of Jurisprudence, or Doctor of Law (JD) is a graduate-entry professional degree that primarily prepares individuals to practice law. In the United States and the Philippines, it is the only qualifying law degree. Other j ...

and an

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA) is a professional degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration; elective courses may allow further study in a particular a ...

Career

''Equifax'' and ''GeoTrust''

In the late 1990s, Creighton focused his work in fields of

information security Information security is the practice of protecting information by mitigating information risks. It is part of information risk management. It typically involves preventing or reducing the probability of unauthorized or inappropriate access to data ...

. He began his career by cofounding

in 2001. He led the efforts to raise $24 million in venture financing, and he and his partners acquired the security branch of Equifax.

automated the identification verification of

organizations An organization or organisation ( Commonwealth English; see spelling differences) is an entity—such as a company, or corporation or an institution (formal organization), or an association—comprising one or more people and having a par ...

, and

computers A computer is a machine that can be programmed to automatically carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations ('' computation''). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as ''programs'', ...

over the Internet inventing the

method. In 2006, it was the 2nd largest certificate authority in the world with 26.7 percent market share according to independent survey company

. GeoTrust was sold to

VeriSign Verisign, Inc. is an American company based in Reston, Virginia, that operates a diverse array of network infrastructure, including two of the Internet's thirteen root nameservers, the authoritative registry for the , , and generic top-level d ...

in September 2006 for $125 million, and the brand was acquired by

Symantec Symantec may refer to: * Gen Digital, an American consumer software company formerly known as Symantec * Symantec Security, a brand of enterprise security software purchased by Broadcom Broadcom Inc. is an American multinational corporation, ...

as part of its $1.28 billion acquisition of VeriSign's security business in 2010.

''ChosenSecurity'' and ''AffirmTrust''

After GeoTrust, Creighton served as CEO of ChosenSecurity, which was acquired by

PGP Corporation PGP Corporation was a company that sold Pretty Good Privacy computer software. It was founded in 2002, and acquired by Symantec in 2010, and by Broadcom in 2019. History PGP Corporation was co-founded in June 2002 by Jon Callas and Phil Dunkel ...

(which was later acquired by

). He was also cofounder and

executive chairman The chair, also chairman, chairwoman, or chairperson, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the gro ...

of AffirmTrust LLC, which was acquired by

Trend Micro is an American-Japanese cyber security software company. The company has globally dispersed R&D in 16 locations across every continent excluding Antarctica. The company develops enterprise security software for servers, containers, and cloud ...

in 2011.

''CounterTack, Inc.''

Creighton currently serves as

and

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

of CounterTack, Inc., a real-time

company that focuses on preventing cyber-attacks and managing Internet threats. The

-based company was formed in 2011 and has since raised $90 million in

venture capital financing Venture may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music *The Ventures, an American instrumental rock band formed in 1958 *"A Venture", 1971 song by the band Yes *''Venture'', a 2010 EP by AJR Games * ''Venture'' (video game), a 1981 arcade g ...

. He also serves on the advisory board of the US Army Cyber Institute, and is a former advisory board member for

OneID OneID was a digital security service based in Redwood City, California. OneID sold a digital identity system that claimed to provide security across all devices using public-key cryptography instead of passwords. The technology is utilized by non- ...

Ratepoint controversy

Creighton was the CEO and founder of Ratepoint, an email marketing firm, that raised $25 million in venture financing. He left Ratepoint in 2011 to pursue "other opportunities". The company sold its email marketing business within a year to

Constant Contact Constant Contact, Inc. is an online marketing company, headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, with additional offices in Boston, Massachusetts; Loveland, Colorado; Gainesville, Florida; Los Angeles, California; Brisbane, Australia; Waterloo, ...

and its rating business was discontinued. By 2013, Creighton was chairman at Robly, a competitor to Ratepoint, which is an email marketing firm based out of New York City.

Patent

Creighton is the co-inventor of the

patent granted in 2006, and was issued a

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...

in 2010 for a system that provides secure identity and uniform resource identifier verification.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Creighton, Neal 1965 births Living people United States Military Academy alumni United States Army personnel of the Gulf War Businesspeople from Boston American technology chief executives Kellogg School of Management alumni Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law alumni 20th-century American businesspeople