Actalis Selects Baltimore Technologies to Build Identrus Solution for Italy's Major Banks.

Business Editors & High-Tech Writers

MILAN, Italy--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 16, 2002

Baltimore Technologies (London: BLM)

Baltimore Leads in the Italian Financial Services Sector as Banks

Go Live With Identrus Digital Trust Service in 2002

Baltimore Technologies (London: BLM), a global leader in e-security, today announced that Actalis, Italy's leading provider of ICT security and PKI (public key infrastructure) services for the Italian banking sector, has chosen Baltimore's PKI to provide the platform for securing interbank B2B transactions in compliance with Identrus(TM) requirements.

In one of the largest Identrus implementations worldwide, four of Italy's major banks will go live with the service by the end of 2002. The four banks are SAN PAOLO IMI, INTESA-BCI, MONTE DEI PASCHI DI SIENA and BANCA di ROMA and all are members of Gruppo Utenti Identrus Italia (GUII), an organization of seven Italian banks that joined the Identrus network. Additional banks have already committed to launch the service during 2003 and 2004.

"This is the world's single largest Identrus implementation. Actalis chose Baltimore as the e-security vendor as Baltimore delivers a comprehensive PKI platform that both operates effectively within the Identrus framework and provides highly scalable world-class security technology for business-to-business trading," said Paolo Soru, chief executive officer, Actalis S.p.A.

Identrus LLC, owned by the world's largest banking institutions, is the Internet's only global trust system allowing organisations to manage their business-to-business e-commerce risks through a trusted relationship with their financial institution. From its inception, Identrus chose public key infrastructure as the security mechanism to underpin this trust system. The Identrus root certification authority is based on Baltimore's UniCERT(TM) technology. During the past three years, Baltimore has emerged as one of the leading security software vendor to Identrus-enable the banking sector worldwide.

"Identrus continues to build momentum as more banks deploy the Identrus trust infrastructure," said Andrew McLauchlan, executive chairman for Identrus. "The combination of Actalis and Baltimore provides a solid foundation for a systemic implementation of the Identrus Trust Network in Italy which will, in turn, deliver value and crucial operational risk management support for the banks and their customers."

Baltimore UniCERT enables Actalis to deliver the Identrus trust service to identify and verify the authenticity of electronic trading partners. Furthermore, UniCERT ensures the integrity of information as well as non-repudiation of electronic transactions by delivering a complete infrastructure for the creation and management of digital certificate-based identities and signatures.

"This project not only confirms Baltimore's absolute leadership in the market for high-end trust infrastructure, but reinforces our dominant position in PKI security for the financial services industry worldwide," commented Bijan Khezri, chief executive of Baltimore Technologies plc. "Italy has embraced PKI in finance and government at an early stage. We believe that the Italian banking sector will be strongly positioned to further enhance its competitiveness as it exploits the cost and business benefits resulting from PKI-based e-business enablement. Baltimore's outstanding expertise as an Identrus partner enables us to deliver a proven, open and flexible solution so that Actalis can provide strong e-business security for the Italian finance sector."

As an Identrus(TM) Express Partner, Baltimore offers global financial institutions an Express compliant security solution, tested and optimised to meet the requirements of the Identrus system. Baltimore provided Actalis with UniCERT, its leading PKI security infrastructure, to implement all the security components required for banks to be part of the Identrus framework. In addition to integrating all products to form one turnkey solution, Baltimore has also delivered the KeySteps Blueprint for Identrus, designed to deliver a low risk, fixed price implementation of an operational Identrus PKI platform.

About Actalis

Actalis, founded in December 2001 by SIA and SSB, is the leading Italian company delivering security systems and services based on Public Key Infrastructure enabling digital certificates and digital signatures. Thanks to PKI technology, the company's offering allows users to exchange secure data and transactions over the Internet, by using a public and private key issued by a CA. Actalis has an installed base of 150 customers and a market share of 85% in the Italian certification market. Since March 2002 Actalis is a Certification Authority. For more information on Actalis please visit http://www.actalis.it.

About GUII

GUII, founded in February 2002, is an organization of 7 Italian banks aiming to influence the evolution of the Identrus platform worldwide, to secure a standard understanding of the format in the local market, and to share the development of preparatory activities enabling the integration into the Identrus service.

About Identrus

Identrus(TM) LLC is the global leader in providing proof of identity for digital transactions. Identrus has established the legal and technical infrastructure to provide the global standard for trust and authentication, enabling financial institutions and their customers to reduce costs by moving business processes online while effectively managing the risk of identity fraud. The company is also developing enhanced e-payment initiation services through Eleanor(TM), an industry-standard e-payments initiation solution. The growing Identrus Network is comprised of more than 60 of the world's leading financial institutions, spanning 133 countries. Additional information about the company is available at www.identrus.com.

About Baltimore Technologies

Baltimore Technologies' products, services and solutions address the fundamental security needs of e-business in distributed environments. Baltimore's e-security technology enables companies to verify the identity of electronic counterparties and securely manages which resources and information users can access through open networks. Many of the world's leading organisations in Finance and Government have deployed Baltimore's e-security technology to enable e-business over fixed and wireless networks. Baltimore also offers worldwide support for its authorization management and public key-based authentication products.

Baltimore's UniCERT(TM) PKI product has a proven track record and has been successfully deployed within many `Identrus member' financial institutions worldwide. Baltimore Technologies is an Identrus Express Partner.

Baltimore's products, services and solutions are sold directly as well as through its worldwide partner network, Baltimore TrustedWorld(TM). Baltimore Technologies is a public company, listed on the London Stock Exchange (BLM). For more information on Baltimore Technologies, please visit http://www.baltimore.com

Certain statements that are not historical facts including certain statements made over the course of this document may be forward-looking in nature. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance and achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements implied by such forward-looking statements.