Baltimore Technologies Chosen by Identrus to Secure Global Business-to-Business E-commerce

Business Wire, July 12, 1999

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 12, 1999--

Baltimore UniCERT(TM) to provide digital certificate technology

for pilot of new global banking initiative

Baltimore Technologies (London:BLM), a global leader in e-commerce and enterprise security solutions, today announced that Identrus, the Global Trust Organization, has deployed Baltimore's Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) technology to secure the fully operational pilot of its worldwide business-to-business trust network.

The Identrus project securely links its eight founding financial institutions - ABN AMRO, Bank of America, Barclays Bank, Chase Manhattan, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank (including its recent acquisition Bankers Trust, which was also a founder) and Hypo Vereinsbank - and sets the foundation for the larger, global Identrus trust hierarchy with more than five million corporate customers world-wide. Full commercial launch of the Identrus service is scheduled for early 2000.

"The worldwide scope of e-commerce and the Internet has created the need for global trust and Financial Institutions are aggressively adopting PKI technology for e-security," commented Fran Rooney, CEO of Baltimore Technologies. "The Identrus initiative brings the major players in the financial sector together to accelerate the adoption of business to business e-commerce. We are pleased that Identrus and its member banks have chosen Baltimore for this project. Baltimore's products and systems continue to be selected by many large scale e-business initiatives where security is a fundamental requirement."

Through a relationship with any of these banks or with an associate member bank, companies will be issued digital certificates that will enable them to conduct secure e-commerce with any other company that is a member of the Identrus network. These companies will be able to confidently implement new methods of business practice, attract new customers and suppliers, create new markets, while eliminating transaction costs and offloading much of the complexity of e-commerce.

"Baltimore Technologies has an outstanding reputation for technological excellence and quality of service and are committed to driving industry standards and ensuring interoperability with standards compliant applications worldwide," said Kristin Kupres, Chief Operating & Technology Officer of Identrus. "Baltimore UniCERT provides an easily configurable solution for Public Key Infrastructures, enabling the adoption of digital certificates for business opportunities on the Net."

Identrus was formed to address 'identity trust' - an issue that is intrinsic to the traditional world of banking and which is equally significant to the online world. Using Baltimore UniCERT PKI system, Identrus will issue digital certificates. These Identrus certificates will act as 'digital passports' or 'digital IDs' and attest to the identity of users for a variety of e-commerce applications including email, web and Virtual Private Networks (VPN's). A PKI represents the mix of technologies, laws and policies required to define, issue, verify, manage and use digital certificates required for authentication.

"This is a welcome-to-the-party announcement for Baltimore," said Jim Hurley, the Managing Director of Information Security for Aberdeen Group. "Other IS buyers in North America will want to look into this powerhouse, now that Identrus has bestowed this seal-of-approval."

ABN AMRO are using Baltimore's products for a wide range of secure applications. As a founding member of Identrus, they are looking to extend their security infrastructure to address e-commerce requirements -- "We selected Baltimore Technologies for our enterprise security infrastructure because of their thorough understanding of the security needs of the banking sector. The integration capabilities of their PKI system ensured we would get exactly the solution we required. The choice of UniCERT as the PKI for the Identrus pilot gives us confidence that our customers will be able to conduct secure business to business commerce," said Eric Koop, Vice President, IT Solutions Division/Development Corporate Functions, ABN AMRO Bank.

Baltimore UniCERT's open, standards based architecture and flexible, scalable design uniquely addresses the hierarchical, interoperable Certificate Authority (CA) requirements of Identrus. Its flexible, policy management supported Identrus' business registration requirements enabling them to customize a policy that satisfied the diverse requirements for global e-trust. Baltimore's long-term commitment to ensuring that UniCERT inter-operates with other components of a PKI including directories, databases and e-commerce applications, facilitated the easy deployment of the Identrus pilot. In addition, to support the Identrus project, Baltimore's professional services team provided advanced training, integration and consultancy.

About Identrus

Identrus, announced in October 1998 by eight global financial institutions, for the first time enables businesses to manage their business-to-business e-commerce risks through a trusted relationship with their financial institution. Identrus also enables corporate trading partners to eliminate the time, cost and complexity of building trust relationships with counterparts around the world. Identrus's legal and technical infrastructure is based on a set of uniform system rules, contracts and business practices for comprehensive trust and risk management. The infrastructure is open to financial institutions, their corporate customers and security vendors around the world. For more information, please visit www.identrus.com or write Identrus at Grand Central Tower, 140 E. 45th Street, New York, NY 10017.