Certicom Licenses Security Builder Toolkits to Unisys

Unisys Corporation has licensed Certicoms Security Builder toolkits to embed Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) in its medium-speed NDP Quantum Series and its high-speed NDP850-2000 document processor families. The highly optimized implementations of ECC, found in the Security Builder toolkit, enable Unisys to digitally sign over 10,000 images per minute and address the security requirements of Check 21 (Check clearing for the 21st Century Act) image exchange. Check 21-enabled image exchange provides significant opportunity for improved efficiencies and reduced costs in the U.S. financial industry but also creates opportunities for fraud as the images move through the payment system. This agreement between Unisys and Certicom provides the U.S. financial industry with security technologies to protect against fraud. Check 21 encourages financial institutions to exchange digital images rather than paper to process checks with each other. The security around these digital images is very important because they must guarantee the same legal status as a paper check and eliminate the possibility of fraud while ensuring long-term storage. These requirements present a number of challenges: first, machines scan thousands of checks per minute; second, each image has to be signed to ensure that check values are not tampered with; and third, the encryption must be very strong so that the images can be transferred safely. To achieve maximum efficiency, the digital signature must be small and fast. However, security cannot be compromised, so the signature must also be very strong. With Security Builder PKI, Unisys has integrated an ECC-based digital signature, ECDSA, which offers high security using much smaller key sizes than any other public key scheme available today. It is the only technology capable of digitally signing over 10,000 images per minute. It also allows Unisys to be consistent with the ANSI (American National Standards Institute) DSTU X9.37 Specifications for Electronic Exchange of Check and Image Data. Certicom stands to receive additional license and royalty revenues when third-party developers integrate Security Builder toolkits into their financial applications that validate these digital signatures.