Cylink Licenses Certicom Elliptic Curve Engine From Certicom; Broad Licensing Agreement Gives Cylink Access to Certicom's Strong, Fast Public-Key Cryptography.

SAN MATEO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 19, 1997--Certicom Corp., a leading provider of cryptographic technologies, today announced that Cylink has entered into a broad licensing agreement with Certicom for the Certicom Elliptic Curve Engine -- (CE)2 -- Product Line, including Certicom's Security Builder, a software developers' toolkit, (CE)2 Embedded Systems, and related patents.

The licensing agreement allows Cylink to build (CE)2 into its wide range of information security products to take advantage of Certicom's high-strength, high-performance implementations of the Elliptic Curve Cryptosystem (ECC).

"This new milestone in our longstanding relationship with Cylink is particularly gratifying given their history of innovation in public-key technology, and their current market leadership in network security products," said Philip C. Deck, president and CEO of Certicom. "We are pleased to partner with Cylink to meeting their customer demands for cryptography that can keep pace with today's security requirements."

"Cylink is committed to ensuring that we provide our customers with the best network security technologies available in the world," said Fernand Serrat, president and CEO of Cylink. "Certicom has led the world in commercializing and standardizing ECC and we look forward to working with them and enhancing our products with the strength and efficiency that (CE)2 offers in a range of OEM products."

Certicom's (CE)2 has become a critical tool for emerging information security applications as technology vendors seek to implement high-strength cryptographic functions in high-volume transaction environments, such as electronic commerce, or in resource constrained devices, such as wireless products and smart cards.

Cylink is one of the pioneers in applying public-key cryptography in commercial products and was the exclusive licensor of Stanford University's Diffie-Hellman patents prior to their expiry on Sept. 6, 1997. These patents were part of Stanford's unique portfolio of fundamental patents that first revealed the ground breaking science of public-key cryptography to the world.

The Diffie-Hellman key management system, when coupled with the modern Digital Signature Standard (DSS), forms the foundation for a complete, public-key based security system. This system provides authentication of users, and the integrity and privacy of data in electronic transactions.

Certicom's (CE)2 products build on the Diffie-Hellman and DSA techniques by implementing them using elliptic curve based arithmetic. The elliptic curve analog of the Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) and the elliptic curve analog of the Nyberg-Rueppel digital signature scheme (ECNRA) are two such examples. ECDSA and ECNRA are part of the draft IEEE P1363 standard for public-key cryptography, and ECDSA is undergoing standardization in ANSI.

The Certicom Elliptic Curve Engine, (CE)2, is the cryptoengine at the heart of Certicom's product line. Available in a range of development tools, (CE)2 enables OEMs to harness the security of the Elliptic Curve Cryptosystem (ECC) with the efficiency and flexibility of Certicom's implementation technology.

The (CE)2 Foundation in Security Builder contains symmetric-key algorithms, secure hash functions, and random number generators. The (CE)2 Foundation is interoperable with the entire (CE)2 Product Line, enabling the deployment of secure applications across a wide range of operating environments and devices.

Certicom is a leading provider of cryptographic technologies for computing and communications companies. Certicom's core technology is the Certicom Elliptic Curve Engine (CE)2 -- a stronger, faster, smaller engine that performs public-key encryption and digital signatures required for advanced data security. (CE)2 is available for software, firmware, and integrated circuit implementations and is particularly well suited for constrained environments such as smart cards, wireless devices and high-transaction servers.

Certicom's cryptographic research and product development is based in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, with sales and marketing operations in San Mateo, Calif. Certicom shares are quoted on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol "CIC".

Cylink Corporation, and its wholly owned subsidiary Algorithmic Research, are leading providers of network security solutions and wireless communications. Their security products enable secure transmission of data over networks, including local area networks (LANs), wide area networks (WANs), and public packet-switched networks, such as the Internet. Cylink and Algorithmic Research serve Fortune 500 companies, multinational financial institutions, and many international government agencies.

For additional product or investor information, visit Cylink's home page at http://www.cylink.com .

CONTACT: Certicom Corp.

Kim Morningstar, 905/507-4220 or 800/561-6100 (in the U.S.)

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or

Miller/Shandwick Technologies

Anne Gowan/Carey Anderson, 415/962-9550

[e-mail]

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or

Cylink Corporation

Gene Carozza, 408/328-5175 or 800/716-6434

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