Alcatel Licenses Certicom's Leading Security Technology for VPN Gateway and DSL Modem Products

NETWORLD + INTEROP, LAS VEGAS, NV, May 10, 2001 - Certicom (Nasdaq: CERT; TSE: CIC), a leading provider of mobile e-business security, today announced a licensing agreement with Alcatel, a world leader in the high speed access and optical transport market. Alcatel has licensed Certicom's leading security technology, elliptic curve cryptography (ECC), which enables operators to offer virtual private network (VPN) solutions to the growing base of DSL users. Integrating Certicom's security technology enables faster performance for the DSL modem products and VPN solutions.

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 fast performance available with ECC makes recommended security levels feasible on a Palm PDA, enabling IT managers to easily enforce their security policies for this platform. An IP-enabled device, such as a PDA loaded with the Certicom movianVPN™ client, makes it possible for mobile users to gain more secure access to a corporate Intranet using Alcatel VPN products.

Certicom's movianVPN, the industry's first broadly interoperable wireless VPN client, allows companies to extend critical enterprise applications such as e-mail and customer relationship management (CRM) tools to mobile professionals by connecting to corporate VPN gateways for secure remote access.

"Alcatel is committed to providing products and solutions with the best efficiency and performance possible," said Willem Verbiest, president of Alcatel's DSL activities. "Certicom's high-powered security technology is key to enabling the level of performance needed for consumer friendly products with uncompromising security."

"As a world leader in the high speed access and optical transport markets, Alcatel is a major player in the areas of telecommunications and the Internet," said Richard Depew, executive vice president of Certicom. "Today's announcement represents another strategic partnership for Certicom with an industry leader and demonstrates how the benefits of our efficient technology enable solutions for the wired and wireless world."

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.


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