Last month, the RSA Conference – one of the world’s largest and most influential forums on cybersecurity and cryptography – honored our colleague, Verisign Chief Technology Officer Burt Kaliski, with a Lifetime Achievement Award for his enduring and significant contribution to the advancement of the cybersecurity industry and cryptography.
At the RSA Conference in San Francisco, Burt was one of two recipients of the coveted award, which is granted to “outstanding leaders who have made significant contributions to the advancement of the cybersecurity industry over their lifetime.” MIT Professor Ron Rivest and Verisign Chairman and CEO, Jim Bidzos, who began building RSA in 1986, before Burt joined in 1989, presented the award.
The RSA Conference acknowledged Burt’s leadership of Verisign’s long-term research program involving internet infrastructure, as well as his previous roles as the founding director of the EMC Innovation Network, vice president of research at RSA Security, and founding chief scientist of RSA Laboratories, where his contributions included the development of the Public Key Cryptography Standards (PKCS).
An outstanding leader, Burt oversees a team of Verisign technologists pursuing critical research into the future of the Domain Name System (DNS), while also continuing to conduct and publish his own groundbreaking research.
Verisign thanks the RSA Conference for recognizing Burt’s decades of vital contributions to the field of cryptography, the broader cybersecurity industry, and DNS technology.
You can watch the award ceremony or read the full transcript below:
Announcer:
To present the RSAC 2025 Conference Lifetime Achievement Award, please welcome institute Professor MIT, Ron Rivest and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Verisign, Jim Bidzos.
Ron Rivest:
Good afternoon.
Jim Bidzos and I are here to present the RSAC Lifetime Achievement Award to Burton Kaliski.
We’re so proud of him for his accomplishments and for this well-deserved recognition. I met Burt in 1983. He did his bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD thesis with me at MIT finishing in 1988. He was the Founding Chief Scientist at RSA Labs, leading the company’s research team. Burt’s strength in research was evident from his being selected as General Chair of CRYPTO ‘91 and selected as Program Chair of CRYPTO ‘97.
Burt has been involved in many different aspects of cryptography. His most cited paper is “PORs: Proof of Retrievability for Large Files” with Ari Juels, a cryptographic method enabling a server to prove that it actually possesses a particularly large file. Burt understands the importance of standards to a cryptography as standards are necessary for interoperability. He has been very involved in designing and promoting cryptographic standards.
Most recently, Burt has been involved in post-quantum cryptography and has proposed methods for parties to advertise that they have the ability to agree on a secret key, for example. He also developed general methods for using Merkle Trees and hash functions to efficiently sign messages, even signing multiple messages at once. Burt has always been interested in the relationship between theory and practice and in seeing that theoretical advances have practical impact through the development of supportive technology and standards.
For all these accomplishments and more, I’d like to convey my congratulations.
I’d like next to hand the mic, metaphorically, over to Jim Bidzos to make some remarks.
Jim Bidzos:
Thank you, Ron.
Dr. Burt Kaliski arrived at RSA Data Security over 35 years ago in 1989. I hired him in September as employee number seven, and its first full-time cryptographer. He joined me and MIT Professor Ron Rivest, who you all know as the co-inventor of the RSA algorithm and co-founder of RSA data security. And when Burt joined us, he went right to work. That year, he was supporting the emerging Privacy Enhanced Mail standard, an effort underway at the IETF. He also began assisting RSA customers who were the leading tech companies of the time, applying his expertise by designing and developing tools and specialized protocols to help them seamlessly integrate cryptography into their products. In 1991, he was leading the efforts to create a broad set of standards for interoperable cryptography, known as PKCS, and the participants included Novell, Lotus, Apple, and Microsoft, among its members.
The seminal PKCS specifications are widely used today. He was a panelist in the first RSA conference in 1991, which today is more aptly named RSAC, and many since. By 1992 at the ripe old age of 28, Dr. Kaliski was the Founding Chief Scientist of RSA Labs, the membership of which included pioneering cryptographers such as Doctors Ron Rivest, Whitfield Diffie, Martin Hellman, and Taher Elgamal, all, by the way, RSAC Lifetime Achievement Award recipients themselves. And all along the way, every year he taught, lectured, and published important research on cryptography, things that he continues to do to this very day.
He has never left the family. He is currently the Chief Technology Officer at Verisign, where I’m the CEO, and Dr. Rivest is an advisor. Burt’s work and his research are present throughout today’s digital world. Many millions around the world can thank Dr. Burt Kaliski for his contributions to the digital privacy they enjoy.
Now, I’ve made many presentations of the RSA Lifetime Achievement Award. I can think of no greater pleasure or honor than to be on this stage today, along with Professor Rivest to present to a colleague and a friend of us both across five decades, this well-earned and deeply deserved recognition. Burt, please join us on stage to accept the award.
Dr. Burt Kaliski:
Thank you. It’s an incredible honor to receive this award. Jim and Ron, thank you so much for your generous words. You’ve already given me more than enough for a lifetime by involving me in your historic contributions. And thank you RSAC for this high honor.
Standing here now, I’m so deeply grateful to the strong family members who have stood alongside me with a lifetime of love. My late parents Burt Sr. and Janice, who got me started as a learner. My Uncle Marty, who introduced me to computers and number theory. My accomplished siblings; Kristen, John, Karen and Michael and their families. The incomparable Michele Fichtl Kaliski, my partner in life since our days at MIT. Our son, Steve and daughter Jessie, their spouses Chanya, and Justin, our grandson, Ari.
My appreciation also goes to the leaders in our field who have invested of themselves in my endeavors: the late Denny Branstad, Shafi Goldwasser, and Silvio Micali, who along with Ron advised my research at MIT, Marty Hellman for his many words of wisdom, the excellent executives I’ve reported to, including the late John Adams, Art Coviello, Jeffrey Nick, Todd Strubbe, Danny McPherson, and of course Jim. The scientists who grew RSA Laboratories, Matt Robshaw, Lisa Yin, and Ari Juels, and so many others who have helped me along the way. Thank you.
My friends, do you recall the feeling you had when you first encountered an amazing idea? I still remember when I learned about RSA this way to encrypt with a key that you couldn’t decrypt with. Could this be possible? Yes! A lifetime later I have a name for this sense of discovery, of wonder, that has permeated my career. It’s hope. Hope that if there is one idea that can help the world, then there must be more. That we are not limited by the past. We can build a better future, together. And that if we pursue these gifts with humility, then we may, indeed, also build a lifetime of achievement in the things that matter.
Thank you.
