Yubico Company History
2007 Yubico is founded in Sweden with the mission to protect all internet citizens, making secure login easy and available to everyone.
Our Historical Origins
1748 / Augustin Ehrensvard designs Sveaborg an innovative fortress to protect Sweden against Russia, and is later ennobled by the Swedish king for this work. The fortress is today listed as a UNESCO world heritage site.
The 2000s / Our Beginnings
2007 / Yubico is founded
Yubico is founded in Stockholm, Sweden making secure login easy and available to everyone, and enabling one single authentication key to work across any number of services. Jakob Ehrensvard, CTO, electronic computer engineer, with direct lineage to the fortress engineer, and Stina Ehrensvard, CEO & Co-Founder, industrial product designer, develops a working prototype of the YubiKey 1.0, the world’s first one touch, one-time password authenticator, requiring no client or driver as it identifies itself as a keyboard.
2008 / YubiKey 1.0 is launched
On the Security Now podcast, YubiKey 1.0 is launched, two weeks after Stina meets the podcast host Steve Gibson at the top of an escalator at the RSA conference in San Francisco. The listeners of the podcast become Yubico’s first customers and contributors to our open source community.
2009 / Yubico adds “static password”
Yubico adds the new “static password” feature to the YubiKey, including the option of sending a static password, up to 60 characters long, with the YubiKey touch button. YubiKey 2.0 is launched with new innovative, high durability, moulded monoblock design.
The 2010s / Early Innovations
2010 / Advancements to the YubiKey
Yubico is awarded a Swedish government innovation grant for developing the YubiKey NEO, a more advanced YubiKey including NFC, and new ideas on how to use ECC public key cryptography for authentication at scale. OATH one-time password standard is added as a new feature to the YubiKey.
2011 / From Stockholm to Silicon Valley
The Ehrensvards move to Silicon Valley with the goal to work closely with the Internet thought leaders to further develop the YubiKey technology into a global standard. Discussions are initiated with Google internal security team, who also had identified the benefit of public key cryptography for protecting against advanced phishing attacks. The same year Yubico launches the YubiHSM1 hardware security module.
2012 / Yubico Partners with Google
Yubico presents ideas to Google on a YubiKey that includes one touch user presence and public key cryptography to securely access any number of services, with no shared secrets between services. Yubico and Google sign a partnership contract to co-create U2F. A cryptography expert from NXP helps validate the concept. Later in the year, Yubico launches the YubiKey NEO (with NFC) and the YubiKey nano form factor for semi-permanent installation into standard USB-ports.
2013 / FIDO and Personal Identity Verification
Yubico and Google contribute the U2F technical specifications to the FIDO Alliance, and then join as board members. OpenPGP is added as a feature to the YubiKey. Yubico also adds the Personal Identity Verification (PIV) feature with attestation to the YubiKey NEO.
2014 / First FIDO U2F Reference Design Launch
Google launches support for U2F security keys in Gmail and Chrome. Yubico launches the first FIDO U2F reference design in the form of the “blue” security key, and publishes free open source U2F server code, and technical support to service providers.
2015 / Growing Support for Security Keys
Yubico launches the YubiKey 4 Series, built on high-performance, secure elements, and enables stronger and faster crypto operations. Dropbox and GitHub make support for FIDO U2F security keys and the GitHub user community votes FIDO U2F support as the most wanted feature in Firefox. Yubico co-creates reference implementation for FIDO U2F over NFC with FIDO technical working group, and updates YubiKey NEO with NFC enabled FIDO U2F support to work with Android.
2016 / Developing FIDO 2.0 and New Specifications
Yubico guides many more services in making support for FIDO U2F including UK Verify, Dashlane, and Salesforce.com. Mozilla commences development in Firefox. FIDO starts developing FIDO 2.0 with a next-generation specification covering more use cases, including passwordless login, with Yubico and Microsoft as primary contributors and the first to build working reference designs. In parallel, Yubico adds touch-to-sign to the YubiKey PIV feature with Docker.
2017 / Yubico Launches First USB-C Security Key
Facebook makes support for U2F. Yubico launches first USB-C security key in a YubiKey keychain and nano form-factor, the world’s smallest authenticator. Yubico contributes to the technical specification and builds the first U2F reference design for a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) security key, but decides not to launch the key due to security, usability and durability limitations.
2018 / Yubico Launches new YubiKey Series
Yubico launches the YubiKey 5 Series and Security Key 2 with support for FIDO2 and Passwordless Login. Yubico also introduces the YubiKey 5 FIPS Series, which are FIPS 140-2 validated YubiKeys that enable government agencies and regulated industries to meet the highest authenticator assurance level 3 (AAL3) requirements from National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) SP800-63B guidance. YubiHSM2 launched with more advanced public cryptography features. Yubico also launches the Works with YubiKey Catalog, a comprehensive collection of verified YubiKey integrations.
2019/ YubiKey Wins Best Mobile Solution
Yubico previews the YubiKey Lightning at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas winning Wired Magazine’s Best Mobile Solution. The Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) announces WebAuthn, the new global Web Authentication Standard comprising the FIDO U2F and FIDO2 inventions.
The 2020s / Growing and Giving
2020 / Introducing YubiKey 5C NFC
Yubico introduces the YubiKey 5C NFC, a multi-protocol key that supports OTP, PIV/Smart Card, U2F, and FIDO2 and enables communications with USB-C and NFC all in one, allowing users to securely access online accounts across desktops and mobile. Yubico announces the availability of YubiEnterprise Services, a set of service-based offerings designed to transform the way that enterprises purchase, distribute and manage YubiKeys at scale.
2021 / Next Generation FIPS and Secure It Forward
Yubico introduces the next generation of FIPS 140-2 validated security keys with the YubiKey 5 FIPS Series, and also introduces a new FIPS-validated hardware security module, the YubiHSM2 FIPS. The company adds the first biometric security keys to its lineup with the YubiKey Bio Series – FIDO Edition. Yubico launches Secure it Forward to protect vulnerable and at-risk individuals and organizations who are in need of up-leveling their security with the YubiKey. This program was developed based on the history of the company donating YubiKeys to help ensure everyone is safe and secure online. Yubico announces the expansion of YubiEnterprise Delivery to 49 countries, including 15 countries in APJ, to help secure users in both corporate and residential locations around the world. Yubico expands the Security Key Series with the new Security Key C NFC, an all-in-one passwordless key with support for both USB-C and NFC on a single key.
2022 / Yubico Gives Back
Yubico donates 20,000 YubiKeys to the Ukrainian government to protect their critical infrastructure. Yubico releases Yubico Authenticator 6 for desktop and mobile. Microsoft announces Azure AD certificate based authentication for mobile devices, with YubiKeys as the only compatible external security key. Microsoft, Google and Apple announce the enhancement of WebAuthn/FIDO2 with passkey support. This rollout also includes hardware-bound passkeys, which Yubico has supported on their YubiKey and Security Key Series’ since 2018. Broader adoption for YubiKeys continues with Apple adding support for hardware security keys to protect iCloud and Apple accounts.
2023 / Yubico Today
After 16 years as CEO, Yubico co-founder Stina Ehrensvard steps into a new role as Chief Evangelist to help accelerate awareness on the importance of phishing resistant technologies and open authentication standards. Mattias Danielsson transitions into the role of CEO, and Jerrod Chong as President and COO. Yubico launches the expansion of its YubiEnterprise Subscription program and introduces the expanded Security Key Series to include two enterprise, FIDO-only keys. Yubico announced its intention to go public through a merger with ACQ Bure, a Swedish holding company that is traded publicly on Nasdaq Stockholm. The merger was completed in September of 2023.