Betrusted Acquires Baltimore Technologies' Public Key Infrastructure -PKI- Product Business; Approval Granted at Baltimore Extraordinary General Meeting.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 3, 2003

Betrusted Holdings Inc. ("Betrusted") today announced that it has been granted shareholder approval to acquire Baltimore Technologies' plc (London: BLM) PKI business for a total consideration of US$ 8.26M (5.0 million sterling).

With this acquisition, Betrusted gains Baltimore's flagship Unicert product, the world's leading PKI infrastructure technology, with more than 300 customers, in the high-end government, financial services and telecommunications markets. Betrusted gains these top-tier clients, a leading market position in the global PKI market, top tier security professionals as well as a proven partner network. This acquisition greatly accelerates Betrusted's mission to becoming the first call for trust services to the world's leading organizations.

"PKI is an integral part of Betrusted's business strategy and it has always been part of Betrusted's security's mission to enable secure e-business by ensuring the authenticity of people, devices and transactions," said John Garvey, CEO of Betrusted. "This acquisition will help us fulfill that mission. Baltimore's PKI solutions are designed to ensure the integrity of the transactions users have been authorized to conduct."

"Authorization is an important part of enabling e-commerce, and a natural complement to Betrusted's current capabilities," said Rick Smith, Chairman of Betrusted's Board of Directors. "Unicert is the technology leader in this segment, and Betrusted's acquisition should enable us to offer even stronger authorization solutions. This move should add a healthy dose of competition to the market, which can help the segment grow and will expand technology innovation."

"In contrast to many industry analysts, Betrusted has never believed in either the boom or the bust of the PKI industry," added Garvey. "We believe in the growth in the use of this technology over the next several years, particularly as we make its implementation easier and more cost effective as organizations move to web services. Unicert will, therefore, become an increasingly critical element of our clients' global infrastructure. We fully intend to continue to meet and exceed Baltimore's high level of support and development quality."

"The long-term competitiveness of the PKI business requires critical mass and Betrusted has emerged as an excellent partner to take Baltimore's PKI technology and customer base to the next level," added Smith. "Baltimore has been a highly customer-centric organization. Betrusted will provide the same long-term value to their customers as it continues to expand its business globally."

About Betrusted

Betrusted is the premier global provider of security and trust services to the world's leading organizations and government agencies. Through its managed security services, Betrusted offers clients a comprehensive package of leading security products coupled with unrivalled expertise to help reduce costs, increase revenues and comply with government and industry regulations. For more information, please visit our website at www.betrusted.com. Betrusted is owned by One Equity Partners, Bank One's private equity group.

About Bank One

Bank One Corporation (www.bankone.com) is the nation's sixth largest bank holding company, with assets of $290 billion. Bank One has more than 51 million credit cards issued, serves nearly 7 million retail households and over 20,000 middle market customers. It also manages $175 billion of clients' investment assets.