CyberTrust was a security services company formed in Virginia in November 2004 from the merger of TruSecure and Betrusted. Betrusted previously acquired GTE Cybertrust. Cybertrust acquired a large stake in Ubizen, a European security services firm based in
Belgium, to become one of the largest
information security firms in the world. It was acquired by
Verizon Business in 2007. In 2015, the CyberTrust root certificates were acquired by
DigiCert, Inc., a leading global Certificate Authority (CA) and provider of trusted identity and authentication services.
History
CyberTrust was founded as a subsidiary of
GTE Corporation's Government Systems Information Security Directorate. It focused on security services for
electronic commerce
E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain manageme ...
. These included
authentication, privacy, integrity and
non-repudiation using
Public Key Encryption
Public-key cryptography, or asymmetric cryptography, is the field of cryptographic systems that use pairs of related keys. Each key pair consists of a public key and a corresponding private key. Key pairs are generated with cryptographic al ...
technology. In 2000,
GTE sold CyberTrust to Ireland-based security company
Baltimore Technologies for $150 million. In 2003, Baltimore Technologies divested its operating companies, including all digital certificate operations to BeTrusted Holdings, Inc. A year later in September 2004, BeTrusted announced its intention to merge with former competitor TruSecure Corporation and in November the resulting company was incorporated in Virginia as CyberTrust.
Verizon Business then acquired Cybertrust in 2007, reuniting it with its former parent (Verizon was created by the merger of
GTE and
Bell Atlantic). Financial terms were not disclosed. In 2015, the CyberTrust root certificates were acquired by
DigiCert, Inc., a leading global Certificate Authority (CA) and provider of trusted identity and authentication services. The financial terms were not disclosed.
Cybertrust used its majority shareholding to dilute the remaining Ubizen shares, forcing it to acquire the remaining shares and delist Ubizen in 2005.
Betrusted was originally created by PWC and sold to One Equity Partners, a division of Bank 1. One Equity Partners also purchased 90 East and SecureNet (who bought the PKI component of Baltimore and the gateway operations of iSecure).
Present
The acquisition of the CyberTrust root certificates makes DigiCert the second-largest Certificate Authority (CA) for high-assurance
SSL Certificates
In cryptography, a public key certificate, also known as a digital certificate or identity certificate, is an electronic document used to prove the validity of a public key. The certificate includes information about the key, information about t ...
. As part of the deal, DigiCert will assume management of the CyberTrust/Verizon trusted roots and intermediate certificates. Verizon will continue to offer SSL Certificates as a reseller of DigiCert.
Pursuant to DigiCert's acquiring Verizon Enterprise SSL business, DigiCert announces its partnership wit
Cybertrust Japanto expand its market presence in Asia.
Under this new partnership, DigiCert and Cybertrust Japan also announce
Cyber Secure Asia
Cyber may refer to:
Computing and the Internet
* ''Cyber-'', from cybernetics, a transdisciplinary approach for exploring regulatory and purposive systems
Crime and security
* Cyber crime, crime that involves computers and networks
** Conventi ...
, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cybertrust Japan, which will market DigiCert's certificate technology to
Southeast Asia from a regional headquarters in
Singapore.
References
External links
Verizon EnterpriseDigiCert, Inc.Cybertrust JapanCyber Secure Asia
Technology companies established in 2004
Companies based in Fairfax County, Virginia
Computer security companies
2004 establishments in Virginia
American companies established in 2004
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