Wickr, a messaging startup that claims to provide military-grade encryption of text, picture, audio and video messages, is now licensing its key security technology to other applications. The security suite offered by the two-year-old San Francisco-based company not only focuses on the loopholes that have been exploited in the recent past, but also contains many other security features that are drawing consumers to certain apps.

Chief among Wickr's security products is a Key Manager that generates a unique set of keys for each message. The company does not have any access to these keys as they are generated on users' devices, hence providing end-to-end encryption.

Another major offering is a Friend Finder tool that connects with your social networks without uploading a contact book, making sure your contact list isn't abused or your friends spammed. There is also a Timer that lets you set an expiry date on the data you send so it will self-destruct after a certain period of time. Other security products include an Anti-Spam Block List, an Anonymizer, and a Shredder.

CEO Nico Sell, who is also a longtime organizer of the DEF CON security/hacker conference, told TechCrunch that it is unlikely that the company will agree to sell all its security features to a single vendor. "All that secret sauce together is what makes us so special," she says, adding that the deals will be on a feature-by-feature basis.

According to Sell, Wickr's technology could have helped WhatsApp and others to prevent privacy issues. Just last week, an IT expert claimed that attackers can easily access WhatsApp's chat history. On the other hand, Snapchat has also been in the news for its security vulnerabilities.