Gregor Freund

Gregor Freund is an American technologist and serial entrepreneur. He is noted for coining the term “spyware” and developed several patents including his personal firewall and consumer security technologies.

Biography

Freund's personal biographical details such as those covering his early life is not accessible in the public domain. The available information about Freund covers his early career, which began as an employee for Borland International.

During his work for Borland, Freund was able to develop technologies including a data access system, which allows the sharing of files – regardless of the format of individual database files – without the need to make copies. Freund eventually became the company's principal software architect and was also credited for contributing in the company's expansion by founding Borland's first independent branches in Germany and Italy.

Freund left Borland and co-founded the startup Starfish Software with the previous Borland CEO, Philippe Kahn. At Starfish, Freund helped develop smart mobile devices. During this period, Freund was responsible for the company's technologies that powered the device synchronization in the wireless industry. Due to its patents, Starfish was later acquired by Motorola.

He then went on to work for Zone Labs (later ZoneAlarm). One of Zone Labs innovations that were developed by Freund was the TrueVector technology, which allows users to precisely monitor the activities of users in the Internet. For instance, one of its clients, Media Metrics, used the platform to track people to develop a database of information to determine patterns of Internet usage.

Freund was also behind several of Zone Labs’ technologies, including ZoneAlarm, the first personal firewall, and Integrity, an enterprise security solution. In 2005, Zone Labs also introduced what it claimed to be the world's first spyware solution based on next-generation firewall technology. Freund himself was credited for coining the term “spyware“ in 1999, when he used it in a Zone Labs’ press release for ZoneAlarm Personal Firewall. Freund later served as Chief Technology Officer at Check Point Software Technologies. He subsequently co-founded Versal, an education technology platform, and later co-founded Tumoni, where he serves as co-founder and chief architect.

Freund is married to Cecilia Freund.

Career

Freund's career spans several technology companies in software, mobile computing, and cybersecurity.

• Borland International – Developer and later principal software architect (1985-1988)
• Starfish Software – Founding engineer; contributed to early mobile synchronization technologies (1994-1997; later acquired by Motorola)
• Zone Labs – Co-founder; worked on personal firewall technologies including ZoneAlarm (1987-2004; later acquired by Check Point Software Technologies)
• Check Point Software Technologies – Chief Technology Officer following acquisition of Zone Labs (2004-2005)
• Versal – Co-founder and CEO of an education technology platform (2012-2021)
• Tumoni – Co-founder and chief architect (2023–present)

Patents

• System methodology for automatic local network discovery and firewall reconfiguration for mobile computing devices
• System and methodology for providing community-based security policies
• System and methodology for protecting new computers by applying a preconfigured security update policy
• System and methodology for intrusion detection and prevention
• Security system with methodology providing verified secured individual end points
• System providing internet access management with router-based policy enforcement

References