Press Releases

Smart Card Forum, Salt Lake City, February 23, 2000 – CyberSafe Corporation, a leading provider of enterprise network security solutions, and Certicom, a leading provider of mobile e-business security, today announced that they have formed a joint venture. The new company will develop and market turnkey solutions that secure the payment systems for e-business applications by combining smart card-based user identity systems with digital signatures, using the existing payment system infrastructures. These solutions, available Q3 of this year, will benefit e-commerce merchants and customers by virtually eliminating the opportunity for on-line fraud and ensuring consumer privacy when using the Internet. Each company is contributing key technology, management expertise and start-up funding.

"This year, we expect to see a significant growth of smart card solutions in the market," notes Steve Van Fleet, a senior vice president at First Data Corp., a leading electronic commerce and payment services provider internationally. "The latest smart card technologies and standards allow transactions to be communicated securely over the existing networks while ensuring the privacy and identity of the consumer. The combination of transaction security and identity protection should enable many new applications."

The new e-business security solutions to be provided by the joint venture feature improved technology based on ‘real-world’ business examples and are expected to be the first widely deployed implementations of on-line identity in payment systems. Specific expected benefits include:

• Ease of deployment because the approach uses as much of the existing payment infrastructure as possible.
• Rapid start-up phase because enrollment uses the same process for account registration as that currently used in issuing credit cards.
• Fraud reduction benefits which outweigh the cost of deployment.
• Low cost smart cards, less data to transmit, and smaller signature size for storage based on the Certicom encryption technology used.
• Options for ‘virtual smart cards’ which enable transition to hardware and lowers the per-user cost of on-line IDs and payment vehicles.
• Limited infrastructure investments as compared to that of many public key-based solutions.

"The joint venture gives CyberSafe an opportunity to combine our strength in identity management with Certicom’s leadership in elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) and cost-effective smart cards to address a critical market need," stated Jim Cannavino, CyberSafe Chairman and CEO. "Our customers in the financial industry have asked us to develop this technology, based on our activity in the X9 standards arena, as a solution to the fraud potential associated with current on-line use of credit cards."

The products developed within the joint venture will be based on the draft ANSI X9.59 digital payments standard, and provide strong authentication, authorization, and accountability for financial institutions, internet service providers (ISPs) and application service providers (ASPs) and e-Commerce merchants. The technology also will provide easy to deploy and manage identity management systems, for privacy and integrity to on-line transactions.

"The solutions being developed through this venture are new products that will leverage the benefits of public key technology and smart cards with a practical approach to interfacing with legacy payment systems," said Rick Dalmazzi, president and CEO of Certicom. "The partnership enables Certicom and CyberSafe to develop digital signature solutions that are extensible to the Internet, traditional point-of-sale environments, and the emerging world of wireless e-commerce."

CyberSafe and Certicom were joined by First Data Corporation, Compaq Computer Corporation, Transaction Systems Architects (TSA) Corp., and InterWorld Corporation in announcing support for the Accredited Standards Committee (ASC) X9 digital payments standard. Formation of this joint venture is an important step towards commercial products and services in this area. Specifics from the joint venture on customer deployments, product availability and pricing are expected to be announced later this spring.

About CyberSafe
CyberSafe is a privately held corporation founded in 1991. Its award-winning TrustBroker™ Security Suite, Defensor®, and Centrax™ product lines are designed to enable secure electronic business, while reducing administration costs. Leading investors in the company include Accel Partners, Deutsche Bank London, Financial Technology Ventures, OAK Investment Partners, and Polaris Venture Partners. CyberSafe is headquartered in Issaquah, Wash., and is on the World Wide Web at http://www.cybersafe.com. For additional information, please send requests to info@cybersafe.com.

About Certicom
Certicom is a leading provider of mobile e-business security technology used to build strong, fast, and efficient security solutions. Major computing and communications companies, such as 3Com/Palm Computing, BellSouth Wireless Data, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, Pitney Bowes, QUALCOMM and VeriFone, incorporate Certicom’s technology into electronic commerce software, wireless messaging applications, and smart cards. Certicom is a leading source for a complete range of OEM security products and services, including cryptographic toolkits, custom implementations, and security integration services and consulting. Certicom’s worldwide sales and marketing operations are based in Hayward, California, with cryptographic research and product development in Toronto, Canada. Certicom shares are traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol "CIC." For more information, visit Certicom’s Web site at http://www.certicom.com.

CyberSafe, Defensor and the CyberSafe logo are registered trademarks of CyberSafe Corporation and its wholly owned subsidiaries. TrustBroker and Centrax are trademarks of CyberSafe Corporation and its wholly owned subsidiaries. Certicom is a registered trademark of Certicom Corp. All other companies and products listed herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

This press release contains forward-looking statements relating to Certicom’s encryption technology. All statements contained in this press release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements including among other things, statements regarding Certicom’s expectations, beliefs, intentions, or strategies regarding the future. Our actual results could differ significantly from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of the risks identified in the documents that we file with the Ontario Securities Commission and other securities regulatory authorities from time to time including our current Annual Information Form.

For further information, please contact:

Lorraine Kauffman
Certicom Corp.
(510) 780-5420
lkauffman@certicom.com

Steve Birge
CyberSafe
(425) 837-1057
steve.birge@cybersafe.com