Introducing Igor Ustinov

OpenSSL Foundation welcomes Igor Ustinov, Senior Software Engineer, as the newest member of our team. This new engineering role is partially funded through Cisco’s premier sponsorship.

Igor has been involved with the OpenSSL project for nearly two decades, contributing his expertise and deep technical understanding to its ongoing evolution. Over the years, he has been actively engaged in extending the project’s cryptographic capabilities — adding support for new algorithms and designing the underlying infrastructure that makes such integrations efficient and sustainable.

In May 2025, Igor was elected to the Foundation’s Technical Advisory Committee. The Committee provides the Foundation with advice on technical issues and challenges, such as how features should be implemented, how technical priorities are set, and how to maintain quality and security across the project. Igor was elected as a representative of the Individuals community and will continue his one-year term in a volunteer capacity.

Beyond his direct work on OpenSSL, Igor also has contributed to integrating these cryptographic innovations into a variety of open-source projects that rely on OpenSSL, including OpenVPN, stunnel, and cURL. His long-term commitment and technical insight continue to strengthen the foundations of secure and reliable open-source software worldwide.

In addition to his development work, Igor has extensive experience contributing to RFCs, providing technical support to users of cryptographic software and ensuring that implementations meet rigorous information security requirements.

One of Igor’s first projects at the OpenSSL Foundation will be working on our GitHub issue backlog, a priority initiative that is being made possible through an investment from Sovereign Tech Fund.

Igor’s broad range of skills and experience will help the Foundation continue to deliver on its mission of providing security and privacy tools to everyone, everywhere. Join us in welcoming Igor to the team! He can be reached at igus@openssl.org.