Today we announced the acquisition of the digital certificate business of Equifax Secure Inc., the e-commerce division of Equifax Inc. (NYSE: EFX), a $1.1 billion worldwide leader in enabling and securing global commerce.
The acquisition significantly strengthens GeoTrust’s position in the 3As – authentication, authorization, and administration – sector of the Security Market, which IDC projects to grow to $9.5 billion by 2005.
“The unique combination of the Equifax SSL transaction security solution with the new True Site Seal identity trust solution from GeoTrust, rearranges the competitive landscape and provides new revenue opportunities for the combined company, while delivering a more meaningful return on investment for the customer,” said Peter Kuper, Vice President of SG Cowen. “At the same time, tapping the Equifax customer base and channel partners should give GeoTrust tremendous traction in expanding on a healthy and growing SSL business with the new identity trust solution.”
“We are very excited to be able to integrate this best-in-class SSL certificate technology with our patent-pending True Site Seal identity trust technology, while deepening our existing relationship with Equifax,” said GeoTrust CEO Neal Creighton. “The Equifax Secure SSL product is proven technology, backed by a world-class operational infrastructure, already deployed in a large world-wide customer base.”
“Focusing the Equifax Secure business on our authentication services core competence while strengthening our relationship with GeoTrust is a win-win,” said Ron Garmon, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Equifax Secure. “Our new strategic partnership leverages the synergies between True Site Seal and SSL and between our authentication services and GeoTrust’s Internet trust solutions.” Digital certificates enable safe Internet transactions via encrypted communication protocols, such as the secure sockets layer (SSL) protocol. SSL encryption solutions have built a solid foundation of Transaction Trust that fueled the commercialization and growth of the Internet. Transaction Trust ensures safe transmission of sensitive information such as credit card data, business collaboration information, and private medical records. While SSL continues to play a critical role for Transaction Trust, it has failed to provide Identity Trust – verification of a site’s identity before establishing a secure transaction.