Renewed focus is on global growth, efficiency and profitability; Headquarters will move to Toronto area 

Mississauga, Ontario (April 30, 2002) - Certicom Corp. (Nasdaq: CERT; TSE: CIC), a leading provider of wireless information security solutions, today announced a re-focus of operations designed to enhance near-term growth opportunities, improve efficiency, and achieve operational profitability by the second quarter of fiscal 2003. These actions will also position Certicom for long-term success in the emerging market for securing communications and transactions. 

"Certicom's technology has gained us leadership in wireless security, with several recent announcements from industry leaders including Motorola, Lucent, Palm and Nokia, among others," said Ian McKinnon, President and CEO. "We are now taking the necessary steps to strengthen that leadership position, with a focus on our core competencies, improved efficiencies and cost controls --- initiatives that we believe will enhance our engineering capabilities as well as Certicom's global reach." 

Headquarters to move to Toronto area 
To improve operational and cost efficiencies, Certicom will relocate its corporate headquarters from Hayward, California to Mississauga, Ontario, where its research and development has continued since the company's inception in 1985. The company will maintain a sales, service and support office in the Silicon Valley area, close to it's key customers and partners. 

The consolidation of operations to Toronto will reduce ongoing operating expenses by up to one third. Management expects a net elimination of approximately 30 full-time positions and the relocation of several positions to other global offices. 

Commitment to growth and profitability
"We are focused on pursuing promising new areas of opportunity," Mr. McKinnon continued. "Through our OEM channels, we have successfully leveraged our leadership in wireless applications into the wired domain, winning significant new business with NCR, Terayon, and, most recently, Reuters, to name a few. We also intend to aggressively pursue growth opportunities in the government and defense sectors where we have achieved recent wins with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Canadian Security Establishment. In the upcoming fiscal year, we plan to release additional new security solutions certified to meet US and Canadian Federal Government standards." 

Mr. McKinnon added, "Our bookings are tracking according to our internal plan, giving us confidence in our ability to continue to grow the business. And by maintaining our strong sales presence in California and in Europe - and expanding our presence in the Washington area - we expect to continue to accelerate our revenue growth while driving to operational profitability by October of this year." 

Leading the company to growth and profitability, Certicom has also appointed a world-class management team that includes professionals from within Certicom supplemented by proven veterans who bring complementary skills and approaches. 

* Fran Pascarella, VP Worldwide Sales, comes to the team with over 20 years of proven sales leadership. Most recently he was VP Channel Marketing at Alcatel and VP Sales for VPN products at Newbridge Networks. Prior to its acquisition by Newbridge, Pascarella was VP Sales for TimeStep Corporation, a network security company specializing in managed IP VPN hardware and software. Pascarella will lead global sales from Certicom's Washington, DC office. 

* Tony Rosati, VP Marketing, comes with 20 years experience in the network security industry. Rosati was a co-founder of TimeStep Corporation responsible for Marketing and Product management. Rosati is also a veteran of both Alcatel and Newbridge Networks where he was a VP Business Development. 

* Ross Bennett, VP Research and Development (R&D), comes with 15 years of experience in the development and deployment of high-quality data communications solutions for the wireless industry. Bennett has been a key member of Certicom's engineering organization for the past two years, and was responsible for the company's successful launch of several award-winning products. 

* Bill Franklin, VP Professional Services, comes with 20 years of experience in the data communications and information security industry, with the last four years in management at Certicom. Franklin manages the Professional Services group specializing in customer focused security solutions. Prior to joining Certicom, Franklin was one of the senior development managers at GN Nettest, a leading data communications test equipment company. 

* Maureen Berry, VP Human Resources and Corporate Services, has 16 years of related professional experience. In her last position as VP Human Resources (HR) for NRX Global, a B2B software company, she was responsible for all HR activities throughout NRX's global network. Berry's prior experience includes consulting and professional services with Coopers and Lybrand. 

Dr. Scott Vanstone, a founder of Certicom, will continue as Executive VP of Strategic Technology leading Certicom's world-class R&D organization. Under his direction, Certicom has amassed approximately 118 patents and patent applications in security and cryptography that are licensed to organizations globally. 

These senior managers join Hervé Séguin, recently appointed CFO, to form the executive management team reporting to Ian McKinnon, President and CEO. 

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 300 customers including Cisco Systems, Inc., Handspring Inc., Motorola, Inc., Nortel Networks, Openwave Systems, Inc., Palm, Inc., QUALCOMM, Inc., Research In Motion Ltd., Sony International (Europe) GmbH, and Verizon Communications Inc. Certicom's headquarters are based in Missisauga, Ontario, with offices in Washington DC, Silicon Valley/Hayward, and London, UK. 

For more information, visit Certicom's Web site .

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 our ability to successfully integrate newly-hired professionals into the management team, the ability to realize anticipated cost savings from our consolidation initiatives, the acceptance of mobile and wireless devices and the continued growth of e-commerce and m-commerce, the continued commitment to new security investments on the part of the US, Canadian and other governments and government agencies, the continued acceptance by our customers of our subscription license model, our ability to implement our restructuring initiatives and our ability to realize resulting cost savings, 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.

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