Companies Collaborate on Innovative 802.1x Security Protocol EAP-TTLS; Certicom's Trustpoint™ to Provide Strong PKI Foundation for Funk Software's RADIUS/AAA Solutions
HAYWARD, Calif., and CAMBRIDGE, Mass., February 7, 2002 - Certicom, (Nasdaq: CERT; TSE: CIC), a leading provider of mobile e-business security, and Funk Software, the leading commercial developer of RADIUS/AAA solutions, today announced a technical collaboration on the innovative EAP-TTLS 802.1x security protocol which provides unsurpassed security for WLAN connectivity, while permitting easy WLAN deployment across the enterprise. Funk Software's Odyssey™ is the first commercial implementation of EAP-TTLS.
EAP-TTLS is an IETF draft jointly authored by Funk Software and Certicom, and is a working document of the PPP Extensions group. The purpose of the protocol is to allow users to be authenticated onto WLANs with their existing password credentials, and, using strong public/private key cryptography, to protect those password credentials against eavesdropping and other attacks that are suddenly made possible by the advent of wireless communications. The result is a protocol that is equal in security to the 802.1x protocol EAP-TLS (included in Microsoft's Windows XP), that can easily be utilized by a single user from any machine, and that is compatible with existing authentication databases and infrastructure, thus putting secure WLAN authentication within any organization's reach.
"We are committed to developing and introducing secure WLAN solutions that network managers will actually be willing to deploy," said Paul Funk, president of Funk Software and co-inventor of EAP-TTLS. "EAP-TTLS is the basis of these solutions, and our technical collaboration with Certicom on the protocol has positioned us well to deliver user-friendly, end-to-end security in Odyssey, and to advance the state-of-the-art in WLAN security management."
"The greatest challenges for enterprises that want to implement wireless connectivity are security and manageability," said Simon Blake-Wilson, business development director for Certicom and co-inventor of EAP-TTLS. "Certicom and Funk Software developed EAP-TTLS to eliminate these challenges with secure connections that are easy for both administrators and end users."
In addition, Funk Software selected Certicom's Trustpoint product to build advanced security and simplified management capability into its leading RADIUS/AAA solutions. Trustpoint will provide the cryptographic underpinnings for implementing EAP-TTLS and other security standards in its market-leading RADIUS/AAA solutions; the first such implementation will be in Steel-Belted Radius®/Service Provider Edition running on the Solaris platform.
Trustpoint is a comprehensive suite of PKI products that allows today's enterprises to build wireless certificate capabilities to enable secure communication and digital signatures over cellular, wireless LAN, and other networks via personal digital assistants (PDAs), mobile phones and pagers. Certicom's security solutions are tailored to the unique requirements of mobile environments, which, unlike desktop-only solutions, require a very compact code size due to bandwidth limitations and memory and processor requirements of mobile 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 200 customers including Cisco Systems, Inc., Handspring Inc., Motorola, Inc., Nortel Networks, Openwave Systems, Inc., Palm, 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.
About Funk Software
Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Funk Software is the leading provider of commercial AAA solutions for wireless operator, service provider, and enterprise networks. In use on thousands of public and private networks worldwide, the Steel-Belted Radius family of products delivers a AAA solution on the scale required by the largest carriers and service providers, and scales easily to meet the centralized remote and WLAN authentication needs of the enterprise. The Steel-Belted Radius family of RADIUS/AAA solutions includes Steel-Belted Radius/Enterprise Edition, Steel-Belted Radius/Service Provider Edition, Steel-Belted Radius Concurrency Server, Steel-Belted Radius Port Allocation System, and Steel-Belted Radius Mobile IP Module. In February 2002, it introduced Odyssey, the first end-to-end 802.1x security solution that lets users securely access a WLAN and can be easily and widely deployed across an enterprise network. For more information, visit http://www.funk.com/.
Certicom and Trustpoint are trademarks of Certicom Corp. Odyssey is a trademark of Funk Software. Steel-Belted Radius is a registered trademark of Funk Software. 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, 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 principal 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 fourth 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.
For further information, please contact:
Lorraine Kauffman | Carol Paterson |
Corporate Communications | Lois Paul & Partners (for Certicom) |
Certicom Corp. | (415) 262-1908 |
(510) 780-5417 | carol_paterson@lpp.com |
lkauffman@certicom.com |
Heather Kelly |
|
S&S Public Relations (for Funk Software) | |
317-275-2275, x23 | |
heather@sspr.com |