eOriginal Selects nCipher To Deliver Trustworthiness of Electronic Documents

Hardware-based cryptographic security to enhance eCoreâ„? Business Suite

WOBURN, MASS—July 16, 2002—nCipher plc (LSE:NCH), a leading provider of cryptographic IT security solutions, announced today that eOriginal, the leading provider of enterprise software to enable organizations to execute secure online business transactions with legally enforceable Electronic Original® documents, has selected nCipher’s encryption-based hardware security module (HSM) to enhance the security associated with issuing, amending and archiving electronic documents.

Electronic commerce relies heavily on the ability to create and maintain the authenticity of e-documents, causing companies to become increasingly dependent on secure business processes for generating and distributing private documents and auditing their subsequence use, all to a legally enforceable standard. For many the goal is to create a solution whereby paperless electronic transactions, including mortgages and loan agreements, can be established as trustworthy and authentic as traditional paper documents.

“Our electronic documents need to be absolutely trustworthy and the combination of nCipher and eOriginal helps to build that trust,” said Darren Ross, director of electronic commerce, Stewart Information Services Corporation. “We are pleased that eOriginal has transitioned its business from hosting ASP services to providing enabling infrastructure software and that eOriginal has decided to secure its unique offering with nCipher’s hardware- and software-based encryption solutions. We are confident that eOriginal’s PKI coupled with nCipher’s cryptographic security products will provide a secure and flexible solution.”

Through the use of digital signatures and by using nCipher’s FIPS 140-compliant nShield hardware security module (HSM), eOriginal has been able to enhance its eCore Business Suite to help ensure that each e-document is authentic, originates from a trusted source and has not been manipulated since its creation. Together nCipher and eOriginal offer the verification and authentication capabilities that provide customers with the assurance that only trusted parties have access to sensitive documents. With nShield, eCore is able to take advantage of secure key management technology that underpins the security of PKI based applications, offering the ability to manage, generate, store and renew cryptographic identification keys, the foundation for security processes such as digital signatures, authentication and authorization tools.

“With more companies conducting business electronically, there is an increasing need to provide technology and processes that enable legally enforceable business transactions to be generated and to be communicated over internal networks or the Internet,” said Bryan Caporlette, CTO, eOriginal. “The decision to purchase nCipher’s FIPS-validated key management technology was the most logical in that it offered best practice security and scalability within a unified system.”

“As the demand for security and privacy grows, so does the need to incorporate cryptography to deliver secrecy, prove identity and establish legal provability” said Richard Moulds, vice president of marketing, nCipher. “We are pleased that eOriginal has selected our market-leading cryptographic solutions to respond to end-user expectations for the utmost in security and reliability when it comes to creating and managing e-documents.”

About Stewart
Stewart Information Services Corp. is a technology driven, strategically competitive, global real estate information company. Stewart provides title insurance and related information services through more than 6,000 issuing locations in the United States and several international markets. Stewart meets the needs of the real estate and mortgage industries through the delivery of information services required for settlement using e-commerce. These services include title reports, flood determinations, property appraisals, surveys, document preparation, property reports and background checks. Stewart also supplies post-closing services to lenders, automated county clerk land records and GIS for governmental entities. Stewart provides expertise in tax-deferred exchanges. More information about Stewart can be found at www.stewart.com.

About eOriginal
eOriginal, Inc. is the only software solution provider offering a complete, comprehensive and integrated solution for electronic contracts, transferable negotiable instruments, securities and source records which enable enterprises to execute secure, online business transactions in which legally enforceable electronic documents completely replace paper as the essential high value assets or source records which are insured by a respected global insurance provider. eOriginal, Inc. is headquartered in The Warehouse at Camden Yards in Baltimore, MD.

About nCipher
nCipher is redefining cryptographic security to protect points of risk across the enterprise—from network appliances to Web servers, to custom software applications and back-end databases. nCipher provides hardware and software solutions that enable organizations to implement best practice security by addressing the challenges of cryptographic key management and performance. Many of the world’s leading organizations—from Microsoft and Barclays Bank to PricewaterhouseCoopers and the U.S. Navy—rely on nCipher to deliver a sound e-security infrastructure. nCipher’s products are particularly well suited to organizations with high volumes of security-sensitive transactions, such as banking and financial institutions, government departments, e-retailers and online service providers.

nCipher is listed on the London Stock Exchange as a TechMARK 100 company (LSE:NCH) with offices in Cambridge, UK; Boston, New York, San Francisco, Dublin, Paris, Hamburg, Hong Kong and Tokyo. For more information on nCipher, visit www.ncipher.com.