On August 20, 2021, ZoTrus Technology was officially incorporated. Today marks exactly five years.
Five years is not a long time – just over 1,800 days. But looking back, every step along the way has counted.
On June 1, 2022, the public beta of ZT Browser was released globally. It was ZoTrus Technology's first software product – a browser that supports SM2 algorithms and SM2 Certificate Transparency, free, universal, and available worldwide. Some asked me back then, "The browser market is already so crowded, why build another one?" My answer was simple: because SM2 SSL certificates need a browser that can actually use them. Without a browser, popularizing SM2 HTTPS encryption would be empty talk. On September 30, 2022, the official version of ZT Browser launched, becoming the world's first browser to support SM2 Certificate Transparency. That was ZoTrus Technology's first "world's first." Last December, ZT Browser added support for the SM2 hybrid PQC algorithm (SM2MLKEM768), another "world's first" – to make the global internet more resilient against quantum attacks. In the years that followed, ZoTrus Technology successively released an SM2 Certificate Transparency log system, a dual-algorithm SSL certificate automation solution, an HTTPS Automation Gateway, and an HTTPS Automation Cloud Service – step by step, turning "Zero Trust accessible, Cryptography simple" from a slogan into real products.
In five years, ZoTrus Technology has grown from one person to a team. From a single browser, we have expanded into a cryptography technology provider covering website security, email security, document security, application security, and identity trust.
But there is one thing ZoTrus Technology has always wanted to do, and has been working on all along: making email encryption barrier-free.
In the September of 2024, we began to seriously ask ourselves: S/MIME email encryption technology has been around since 1995 – over 30 years – so why has it never become widespread? The answer is simple: it's not that the technology is bad, it's that the process is painfully complicated. Manually applying for certificates, manually importing them, manually renewing them, manually managing certificates – this entire workflow is enough to scare off 99.99% of users.
So, we asked ourselves: can we make S/MIME encryption as automated as Let's Encrypt made HTTPS encryption?
The answer is ZTmail. Although the public beta has been delayed, our direction – making email encryption truly automated – hasn't changed. It will only become more solid.
ZTmail is just an email encryption tool. But the simplicity it delivers rests on five years of ZoTrus Technology's accumulated capabilities in cryptography automation – including the SM2 adaptation of the ACME protocol, automated management of dual-algorithm SSL certificates and S/MIME certificate, and a zero-trust architecture that integrates both client and cloud.
Users don't need to know any of that. Users only need to know one thing: download ZTmail, sign in, and every email you send is automatically encrypted. That's it.
Today is ZoTrus Technology's fifth birthday. Although the ZTmail public beta didn't launch as originally planned – didn't deliver a gift today to everyone who needs encrypted email – it's still worth writing about this five-year journey, and about ZTmail, ZoTrus Technology's strategic product.
Five years ago, ZoTrus Technology started from zero. Five years later, ZTmail starts from zero – making every email start from zero trust, encrypt every email automatically.
Thank you to every user, every partner, and every colleague who has supported ZoTrus Technology over these five years.
In the next five years, ZoTrus Technology will continue to walk steadily on its two most important product lines: HTTPS encryption automation and email encryption automation. Just as we spent three years continuously refining the HTTPS Automation Gateway, we will keep polishing ZTmail, continuing to do one thing well: making cryptography accessible, making email encryption a user's default, and making cryptography truly safeguard global internet security without users even noticing.
ZTmail, S/MIME encryption for everybody, automated. AI, your key.