User:Tremendous mike/Ercom

Ercom is a French company founded in 1986, specialising in digital security. The company is headquartered in Vélizy-Villacoublay in the Yvelines département. It will be acquired by Thales in early 2019.

History
Cyril Autant is the CEO of Ercom,.

Initially based in Meudon-la-Forêt, the company moved its head office to Vélizy-Villacoublay. The company employed 25 people in 2005, 120 in 2013, 160 in 2015 and 200 in 2018, including 190 in France, and generated sales of €45 million in 2016. Ercom has offices in France (2009) in Marseille, Lyon and Paris and in Chicago (2012) as well as a presence in China (since 2011).

The company experienced major difficulties in 2015 following the buyout of Alcatel. It was saved from bankruptcy by a number of shareholders, including BPI France and Engie Ineo, and Tempocap, a family asset manager. Suneris Solution, an Ercom subsidiary founded in April 2015, specialises in surveillance technologies. ,, The company has provided Egypt, in particular, with tools for intercepting telephone calls and SMS and monitoring internet traffic, within a legal and regulated framework.

With the Cryptopass system, the company extended its services to the Ministry of Defence's Joint Directorate of Infrastructure Networks and Information Systems in 2016, following its previous collaborations with the Élysée Palace and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In partnership with Samsung, the company is offering Cryptosmart, an ANSSI-approved solution for securing mobile terminals. The IN Group implements the Cryptobox collaborative working solution.

Data interception and surveillance
Ercom develops data interception and surveillance softwares, including a wifi interceptor and a Trojan horse.

Data protection
Ercom sells its services by simulating and measuring the performance of telecoms networks, particularly end-to-end encryption.

The company sells products - Cryptosmart, Citadel Team and Cryptobox[19],[20] to clients like the Élysée Palace, the Ministry of Armed Forces and CAC 40 companies, safeguarding their communications, data and terminals.

Surveillance equipment sold to authoritarian regimes
Ercom and Suneris supplied surveillance equipment to Egypt's authoritarian regime in 2015. ,, According to Télérama, the Suneris subsidiary was set up to "clear Ercom's name from the most inflammatory markets" and is working "on mass surveillance systems sold abroad: in Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, Gabon, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia".

Spyware in France
According to L'Express, the French government acquired spyware with the help of Ercom, a company backed by the Public Investment Bank in 2013 and which raised €18 million in 2011. ,

Close ties with the DGSE
Ercom and Suneris have enjoyed a privileged relationship with the Directorate-General for External Security, a relationship that however led them to a management crisis in 2018.