American security services company
CyberTrust was a security services company formed in Virginia in November 2004 from the merger of TruSecure and Betrusted. Betrusted previously acquired GTE Cybertrust.[1][citation needed] 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.[2] 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.[citation needed]
History
CyberTrust was founded as a subsidiary of GTE Corporation's Government Systems Information Security Directorate. It focused on security services for electronic commerce. These included authentication, privacy, integrity and non-repudiation using Public Key Encryption technology. In 2000, GTE sold CyberTrust to Ireland-based security company Baltimore Technologies for $150 million.[3] In 2003, Baltimore Technologies divested its operating companies, including all digital certificate operations to BeTrusted Holdings, Inc.[4] 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.[5] Verizon Business then acquired Cybertrust in 2007,[6] reuniting it with its former parent (Verizon was created by the merger of GTE and Bell Atlantic). Financial terms were not disclosed.[citation needed] 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.[7]
Cybertrust used its majority shareholding to dilute the remaining Ubizen shares, forcing it to acquire the remaining shares and delist Ubizen in 2005.[8]
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).[9]
Present
The acquisition of the CyberTrust root certificates makes DigiCert the second-largest Certificate Authority (CA) for high-assurance SSL Certificates. 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.[10]
Pursuant to DigiCert's acquiring Verizon Enterprise SSL business, DigiCert announces its partnership with Cybertrust Japan to expand its market presence in Asia.[11] Under this new partnership, DigiCert and Cybertrust Japan also announce Cyber Secure Asia, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cybertrust Japan, which will market DigiCert's certificate technology to Southeast Asia from a regional headquarters in Singapore.[citation needed]
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