CERTICOM SUPPORTS THE CISCO UNIFIED VPN CLIENT FRAMEWORK WITH MOVIANVPN™ FOR WIRELESS DEVICES

Award-winning Cisco VPN 3000 Concentrator Series Now Supports ECC for Fast Performance

HAYWARD, Calif., April 4, 2001 - Certicom (Nasdaq: CERT; TSE: CIC), a leading provider of mobile e-business security, today announced its support of the Cisco unified VPN client strategy and framework to enable VPNs to extend to popular handheld computing platforms. Cisco Systems, Inc. offers a complete set of mobile networking solutions that enable a corporation's workforce to reach key people and information - quickly and securely. In collaboration with Cisco, Certicom will provide its high-performance Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) as part of Cisco VPN Client 3.0 software, which supports the Cisco VPN 3000 Concentrator series. In addition, Certicom's movianVPN, the industry's first IPsec wireless VPN client for handheld devices, is now shipping with Cisco's popular gateway products.

Announced at the Cisco Partner Summit 2001 in Las Vegas, Cisco's unified VPN client framework, which is being developed in phases, will enable VPN connectivity between all desktop, laptop, and personal digital assistant clients and the full range of Cisco VPN-enabled concentrators, routers and firewalls. By supporting the Cisco unified client framework with movianVPN, Certicom is enabling companies to extend their Cisco VPN infrastructure to devices running Palm and Win CE operating systems.

Certicom's ECC technology is ideally suited for securing the new generation of wireless devices that are limited by low processing speed, network bandwidth and battery power. The speed available with ECC makes recommended security levels feasible on a Palm OS device, enabling IT managers to easily enforce their security policies for this platform and enhances the experience on Win CE devices.

"By adding ECC to its VPN products and distributing Certicom's movianVPN during a trial period, Cisco is enabling IT professionals to benefit from an increasingly mobile world," said Greg Marcotte, director of remote access solutions for Cisco. "Cisco is committed to providing solutions that reduce the cost and complexity of VPN deployments while increasing customer's reach, and our collaboration with Certicom provides key technology and a secure wireless VPN application for our unified client framework."

As part of today's announcement, Certicom's movianVPN software will be shipping with Cisco's popular Concentrator 3000 products. This will enable enterprises that require a Palm or Windows CE solution to have immediate access to a wireless VPN solution that interoperates with Cisco's products. After a thirty-day trial, corporations can license movianVPN directly from Certicom. movianVPN allows companies to extend critical enterprise applications such as e-mail and customer resource management (CRM) tools to mobile professionals using popular Palm OS® 3.5 or Windows CE 3.0-based devices. For more information on movianVPN, visit http://www.moviansecurity.com.

"We are pleased to help Cisco deliver its unified VPN client framework, which will extend the reach of Certicom's movianVPN to a wide array of enterprise customers," said Richard Depew, executive vice president at Certicom. "Today's announcement represents another landmark relationship with an industry leader, and demonstrates Certicom's foothold in providing enterprises with capabilities for leveraging their VPN infrastructure to small devices."

About Certicom
Certicom is a leading provider of information security software and services, specializing in solutions for mobile e-business. The company's products and services are specifically designed to address the challenges imposed by a wireless data environment. Certicom's solutions incorporate its efficient encryption technology and are based on industry standards for information security that utilize public key cryptography. Certicom's products are currently licensed to more than 150 customers including ePocrates, Inc., Motorola, Inc., NeoPoint, Inc., Nortel Networks, Openwave Systems, Palm, Inc., Pixo, Inc., QUALCOMM, Inc., Research In Motion Ltd. and Sony International (Europe) GmbH. Certicom's headquarters and worldwide sales and marketing operations are based in the Silicon Valley in Hayward. For more information, visit Certicom's Web site at http://www.certicom.com.

Certicom is a trademark of Certicom Corp. All other companies and products listed herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

Except for historical information contained herein, this press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially. Factors that might cause a difference include, but are not limited to, those relating to the acceptance of mobile and wireless devices and the continued growth of e-commerce and m-commerce (mobile e-commerce), the increase of the demand for mutual authentication in m-commerce transactions, the acceptance of Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) technology as an industry standard, the market acceptance of our principle products and sales of our customer's products, the impact of competitive products and technologies, the possibility of our products infringing patents and other intellectual property of third parties, and costs of product development. Certicom will not update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof. More detailed information about potential factors that could affect Certicom's financial results is included in the documents Certicom files from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission and Canadian securities regulatory authorities including Certicom's current Annual Report on Form 10-K.

For further information, please contact: 

Lorraine Kauffman Elizabeth Safran
Certicom Corporation Lutchansky Communications for Certicom
(510) 780-5417 (408) 938-9050 x25
lkauffman@certicom.com elizabeth@lcomm.com