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Formerly known as Fox Crypto
Sentyron, formerly known as Fox Crypto, is a
developer and manufacturer of
cryptographic products, based in Delft (Netherlands).
The company was founded in 2003 as Fox Crypto — a separate division of
its former parent Fox-IT. Since 1 August 2024 it is part
of CR Group Nordic AB.
The company has its roots in the Dutch IT-company Fox-IT,
founded in 1999 by Menno van der Marel and Ronald Prins.
In 2003, Fox-IT acquired part of the legacy of
Philips Crypto BV,
for which it founded subsidiary Fox Crypto BV. With the acquisition,
Fox Crypto gained access to chip technology that had been approved
for the protection of state secrets. It resulted in the introduction
of the Fort Fox File Encryptor (FFFE),
which was based on Philips' ill-fated
V-Kaart Project.
The history of Philips Crypto dates back to 1957, when the company
— at the time known as Philips Usfa —
took over development of post-WWII cryptographic systems
from the Dutch state-owned telecom monopolist PTT.
When Philips Usfa was sold to
Thomson (now: Thales) in 1989,
the crypto-division was branched out as
Philips Crypto BV,
at the request of the Dutch Government.
In 2003, Philips Crypto was dissolved due to lack
of revenue, after which its assets were divided between
Compumatica and Fox-IT.
It gave Fox Crypto access to approved technology for the protection of
state secrets, including Philips' versatile
GCD and GCD-Φ crypto chips.
In 2015, parent company Fox-IT was acquired by the British
NCC Group, which raised sequrity concern with the Dutch Goverment,
especially after the UK withdrew itself from the European Union in
2020.
Special measures were taken to ensure the security of the Dutch State.
On 1 August 2024, NCC Group sold Fox Crypto to the Swedish CR Group Nordic AB,
after which Fox Crypto was fully European again.
In order to avoid confusion, in particular with respect to its former
parent Fox-IT,
the company name was changed to Sentyron in September 2025.
With the acquisition by CR Group, Sentyron is now a sister company of
the Swedish Tutus Data AB.
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Sentyron products on this website
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No Sentyron products in our collection yet
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- Sentyron DataDiode Ruggedised (1G-10G)
- Sentyron DataDiode Andean (1G)
- Secure Mobile
- Electronic Key Management System (EKMS)
- SkyTale (Generation 3)
- SINA
- ClientPortal
- OpenVPN-NL
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The timeline below shows the history of Sentyron and its predecessors,
starting with the earliest development of a
one-time tape (OTT) cipher
machine by the Dutch state-owned PTT shortly after World War II (WWII)
had ended. These machines were developed at the PTT's
Dr. Neher Laboratory, but were manufactured at
Philips Usfa — a subsidiary of the big
Philips conglomerate which had been founded in 1948 at the request
of the Dutch Goverment for the (secret) production of equipment and supplies
for the Royal Dutch Army, like proximity fuses and night vision goggles.
At PTT's prestigious Dr. Neher Laboratory in
Leidschendam (Netherlands),
Dr. Ir. Roelof Oberman and his colleague
Anton Snijders developed three OTT cipher machines:
Colex, Ecolex I and
Ecolex II, the last of which was even used at
NATO. In 1957, Philips Usfa took over the development
of cipher machines from PTT, after which
Oberman and Snijders left PTT to persue a
career as professors at Delft University. Philips subsequently developed
Ecolex IV, which was the last OTT.
In 1961, development started of the first tapeless rotorless online cipher
machines (TROL), in which electronic circuits based on (non)linear
feedback shift registers (LFSR) replaced the rotors of its
mechanical predecessors.
The NATO-evaluation, for which TROL was initially
developed, was eventually lost to the British
BID/610 (ALVIS), but its technology was used in 1967
in Tarolex.
It was also used in 1972 for the Ecolex X
which would be in service for no less than 20 years.
In the following years, Philips developed the next generations of
cipher machines for the Dutch Army and NATO, such as
Mucolex — the first Trunk Encryption Device
(TED) — Miniflex,
Picoflex
and the highly successful Aroflex,
but also high-end speech encryption devices like
Spendex 10,
Spendex 40 and
Spendex 50 (DBT).
In 1989, Philips Usfa was sold to
Thomson (now: Thales), but the crypto division was kept out of
the deal, at the express wish of the Dutch Government. All crypto-activities
were transferred to the newly founded Philips Crypto,
whilst goverment funding was minimised. From then on, Philips had to
get additional revenue from sales to commercial and foreign customers,
although for of these it had to seek permission from the
Dutch Government.
Between 1990 and 2000, Philips developed a series of versatile cryptographic
processors with proprietary, public and even NATO-grade encryption
algorithms, starting with the
General Crypto Device (GCD)
in 1996, followed by the
GCD-Phi (1997)
and GCD Phi 2000 (1999).
Although Philips sucessfully developed a series of commercial devices,
including the PNVX secure telehpone,
the PFDX secure fax and the
LAN Guard virtual private network,
it failed to successfully market these products.
The final blow came when it failed to successfully implement
V-kaart (V-card) — a PCMCIA card for
secure file transfer and storage, developed for the Dutch Government.
This was partly due to the ever changing requirements and specifications
on the side of the Dutch Government and the Dutch Ministry of Defense.
In 2003, Philips Crypto was dissolved and its assets were taken over
by Compumatica in Uden
(LanGuard)
and Fox-IT in Delft
(V-card,
GCD).
Fox-IT, which had been founded in 1999, established a seprate division
– Fox Crypto – for holding the Philips legacy and for developing further
cryptographic products for the Dutch Government and the Ministry of Defense.
It successfully redeveloped the software for Philips' ill-fated
V-card and re-released it as the
Fort Fox File Encryptor (FFFE),
which remained in use until 2012.
For the next 20 years, Fox Crypto developed and marketed a
series of cryptographic products,
including FFFE, the Fort Fox Data Diode (FFDD) and
the Red Fox cryptographic module.
It also started with the development of an Electronic Key Management System
(EKMS) for the Dutch Ministry of Defense.
In 2015, parent company Fox-IT was acquired by the British NCC Group.
This raised security concerns with the Dutch Government, especially after
Britain left the European Union in 2020 (Brexit), and extra measures had to
be take to guarantee the crypto sovereignty of the Dutch State.
In 2024, Fox Crypto became wholly European again, when it was acquired by
the Swedish CR Group Nordic AB. As part of the deal, the name was changed
to Sentyron in 2025.
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- Sentyron
Olaf Palmestraat 6
2616 Delft
Netherlands
Phone: +31 (0)15 284 79 99
Website: sentyron.com
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© Crypto Museum. Created: Friday 19 September 2025. Last changed: Saturday, 20 September 2025 - 10:52 CET.
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