Twitter has acquired a small password security management startup Mitro for its geo-related development projects and will let it operate independently.
Twitter, the popular micro-blogging service, is continuing its startup-shopping and has snapped a small password security shop Mitro in the process. The announcement was made Thursday by the New York-based IT security firm , which was founded two years ago.
Twitter has decided not to kill the startup and integrate its technology for use into its social networking platform. In fact, Mitro has released its software under free and open source license.
Mitro has released its server and client code under the GPL license on GitHub and hopes to receive advice and support from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which will help Mitro become a more sustainable non-profit community-run service. The service will continue to operate independently without any changes in the foreseeable future, at least till the end of 2014. The decision was welcomed by EFF in an official press release, Thursday.
"We've been working hard to build a secure, easy-to-use password manager for individuals and groups," Mitro wrote on its website. "We've made great progress and we believe that the community can help us accomplish even more."
Mitro's password manager helps users save all passwords and sync them across various devices. It also offers extensions for popular browsers like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Safari along with mobile apps for iOS and Android. However, EFF does not recommend downloading the Android version of the app due to security issues, which will be fixed over time. The startup raised $1.2 million in seed funding from Google Ventures and Matrix Partners. Mitro said that its team will be joining Twitter's location team in New York and help the social network with geo-related projects.
Developers can try the free software here and report vulnerabilities and bugs to help build a reliable platform for all users. The financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
