University of Waterloo recognizes Vanstone for work with Elliptic Curve Cryptography

MISSISSAUGA, Ontario – (November 3, 2004)– Certicom Corp. (TSX: CIC), the authority for strong, efficient cryptography, today announced that Scott Vanstone, founder and executive vice-president of strategic technology, has again garnered recognition for his research in elliptic curve cryptography (ECC). On October 23, 2004 the University of Waterloo awarded him the prestigious University of Waterloo Award for Excellence in Research for his role in researching and deploying ECC as a practical security technology.

Vanstone was chosen by a nine-member committee who cited him as an exceptional scholar with an established international reputation and an uncompromising dedication to excellence. Their choice was approved by the University's Senate Research Council.

After founding Certicom in 1985, Vanstone focused on optimizing ECC for resource-constrained environments, such as wireless handheld computers and smart cards, generating over 300 patents for the company. Due in part to his work, ECC is now in almost every major security standard in the world and was last year licensed by the National Security Agency (NSA). Vanstone continues his research through St. Jerome's University at the University of Waterloo as Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science and as the head of research at Certicom.

"I'm fortunate that I can practice leading-edge mathematics that has practical applications. Not every mathematician has that opportunity," said Vanstone. "I'm honored to receive this award and to work with dedicated teams on a technology that is expanding the parameters of how sensitive and valuable information can be secured."

"Scott is one of those very rare individuals who can successfully straddle both the research and commercial worlds. He has a distinguished reputation in the international cryptographic field and has earned great respect from customers and other industry luminaries," said Dr. Paul Guild, vice-president, university research at the University of Waterloo. "Scott truly is a dedicated professional and leader in developing ECC technology. His commitment has enhanced security practices here in Canada and globally."

In 1998, Vanstone was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Academy of Sciences and holds the NSERC/Pitney Bowes Senior Chair of Cryptography at the University of Waterloo. He is also a founder and executive director of the Centre for Applied Cryptographic Research (CACR). Vanstone has published more than 150 research papers and several books on topics such as cryptography, coding theory, finite fields, finite geometry, and combinatorial designs. He will be a keynote speaker at the upcoming Certicom ECC Conference 2004, November 15-17, at the Four Seasons Hotel in Toronto, Canada.

About Certicom
Certicom Corp. (TSX:CIC) is the authority for strong, efficient cryptography required by software vendors and device manufacturers to embed security in their products. Adopted by the US Government’s National Security Agency (NSA), Certicom technologies for Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) provide the most security per bit of any known public key scheme, making it ideal for constrained environments. Certicom products and services are currently licensed to more than 300 customers including Motorola, Oracle, Research In Motion, Terayon, Texas Instruments and Unisys. Founded in 1985, Certicom is headquartered in Mississauga, ON, Canada, with offices in Ottawa, ON; Reston, VA; San Mateo, CA; and London, England. Visit www.certicom.com.

Certicom, Security Builder, Security Builder Crypto, Security Builder GSE, Security Builder IPSec, Security Builder Middleware,Security Builder PKI, Security Builder SSL, movianVPN, movianCrypt and movianMail are trademarks or registered trademarks of Certicom Corp. All other companies and products listed herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

Forward-Looking Statements
Except for historical information contained herein, this news 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 Canadian securities regulatory authorities.

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