News Releases

May 14, 2001 08:56 AM

Companies to Provide Industry with PKI Solutions for Physical and Virtual E-Commerce Card-based Payment Systems

CardTech SecurTech, LAS VEGAS, Nevada, May 14, 2001 – Hitachi America, Ltd., a subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd., (NYSE: HIT; TSE: 6501), and Certicom, (Nasdaq: CERT; TSE: CIC), a leading provider of mobile e-business security, today announced that Hitachi America has selected Certicom as its strategic public key infrastructure (PKI) and security solution partner. The alliance will provide the industry with PKI services and solutions for e-commerce that provide superior user authentication and security to enable safe and secure transactions.

The Certicom alliance is a key example of Hitachi’s strategy to equip its customers with industry leading, secure e-commerce services. As part of the agreement, Certicom will be a preferred supplier of end-to-end security solutions to Hitachi’s customers. Certicom’s cutting edge solutions, including Trustpoint™ PKI products and MobileTrust™ services, extend standard Internet PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) security to mobile devices such as smart cards, mobile phones and handheld computers.

In making the announcement, Sosei Katsumoto, project leader for Hitachi America’s “Commerce Card” Platform said, “We are pleased to have Certicom as a strategic partner in our effort to further develop smart-card solutions for industry and commerce. This partnership gives us the ability to provide a full solution for today’s increasingly security-conscious e-commerce environment.”

Commenting on Hitachi’s technology, Robert Helena, vice president of smart cards for Hitachi America said, “The key enabler of the Hitachi solution is a state-of-the-art, interactive smart card application platform. The Hitachi ‘Commerce Card’ can be used in both the physical and virtual worlds and combines payment, loyalty, and authentication ID/PKI applications. Certicom’s solutions give us the ability to develop ’Fit for Purpose’ security applications. The ’Commerce Card‘ will provide the link between the applications and multiple devices including traditional point-of-sale devices, personal computers, digital set-top boxes, PDAs, and cellular phones.”

As part of the initiative, Hitachi will work with Certicom to ECC-enable its Multos Smart Card Platform. ECC (elliptic curve cryptography), the industry's smallest, fastest, and most efficient security algorithm, is used by leading OEMs such as Motorola, Sony, Palm and RIM to provide advanced security. ECC dramatically reduces the processing power and memory requirements needed to ensure that security operations are executed on a smart card or mobile device in real-time.

"Hitachi’s Commerce Card Platform strategy enables applications in payments, healthcare, finance and set top boxes that will be key in driving the large scale adoption of PKI and smart cards,” said Rick Dalmazzi, president and CEO of Certicom. "Working with Hitachi, a world leader in the electronics industry, provides Certicom a great opportunity to bring our industry leading end-to-end security solutions to applications around the world.”

"Hitachi’s Commerce Card Platform strategy enables applications in payments, healthcare, finance and set top boxes that will be key in driving the large scale adoption of PKI and smart cards,” said Rick Dalmazzi, president and CEO of Certicom. "Working with Hitachi, a world leader in the electronics industry, provides Certicom a great opportunity to bring our industry leading end-to-end security solutions to applications around the world.”

Certicom is a leading provider of information security software and services that address the need for end-to-end security solutions. Certicom's robust suite of products and services include WTLS Plus™ for WAP implementations, Security Builder® cryptographic toolkit, Trustpoint™ PKI products, MobileTrust™ managed certificate service and the movianVPN™ handheld client.