Wisekey ID Blockchain-based solutions to override the need for a central digital identity authority by distributing information across a network of participating nodes
Wisekey ID Blockchain-based solutions to override the need for a central digital identity authority by distributing information across a network of participating nodes
Geneva, Switzerland – July 16, 2019: WISeKey International Holding Ltd (WIHN.SW) (“WISeKey”), a Swiss based cybersecurity, IoT and blockchain company combining traditional Cryptographic Trust Models with blockchain global distributed ledgers is creating a new Global Trust Platform for Secure Electronic Transactions under the umbrella of the International Organization for Secure Electric Transactions, OISTE.ORG.
According to the latest estimates, we generate around 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day. That’s 2.5 followed by 17 zeros — or rather 2.5 trillion million — a number that’s impossible to visualize intuitively, but nonetheless has massive implications for our online privacy, security and ability to keep our digital identities under our own personal control.
Blockchain-based solutions aim to override the need for a central authority by distributing information previously held in a centralized repository across a network of participating nodes. While blockchain is not owned by one individual or organization, anyone with an internet connection (and access, in the case of private blockchains) can make use of it, help maintain and verify it. When a transaction is made on a blockchain, it is added to a group of transactions, known as ‘blocks.” Each block of transactions is added to the database in a chronological, immutable chain. Each block is stamped with a unique cryptographic code, which ensures that records are not counterfeited or changed. The blockchain approach lacks legal validity in most jurisdictions, which only recognize the digital signatures as equally valid that manuscript signatures when generated using traditional PKI technology.
A user-controlled digital identity typically starts with a number, unique to an individual, that is associated with a public key for which the user has the private key issued by the OISTE/WISeKey Crypto Graphic RootKey. The WISeID Network is a most deployed standard for digital identity operating since 1998 by a non for-profit organization – OISTE.ORG – designed to bring the neutrality, trust, consent, personal control, and ease-of-use of Digital IDs to the Internet.
A Root of Trust (RoT) is a source that can always be trusted within a cryptographic system. A principal example is a Trusted Certification Authority (CA) which generates digital certificates that can be used for legally binding signed electronic transactions. The traditional PKI does not fit well with the heterogeneous blockchain distributed trust model that leverages the existing trust domains and bridges them to create end-to-end trust between them without relying on any common RoT.
The combination of RoT with blockchain generates a new Trust protocol in order to allow the blockchain to scale trusted transactions with embedded security, ensuring that each transaction submitted to the blockchain is digitally signed using keys that are trusted by the RoT and combining a vertical trust process verified by a reputable Third Trusted Party with the inherent decentralized trust provided by the blockchain.
This dual Trust Model solves one of the biggest challenges for the Internet which is to bridge the currently fragmented trust domains including existing, incompatible national RoT used by many governments. By combining RoT with blockchain, our innovative Trust protocol enables a wide range of use cases and business models that simply are not possible with using just current blockchain-based solutions.
One concrete application on the use of this new Trust protocol is WISeCoin. WISeCoin is a Trusted Distributed Ledger Technology of Identity used to store the identity of objects and peoples and offers connected objects the ability to identify, authenticate and verify each other with a digital certificate. During each interaction, the Blockchain of Identity verifies and validates each digital certificate to secure the interaction. To compensate the use of the platform, a micro service fee is charged through a utility token, called the WISeCoin token.
Wisecoin operates in sync with WISeKey’s WISeID that offers a secured storage to protect personally identifiable information (PII). Protecting individual’s PII is important to avoid impersonation and identity theft. The personal data that individuals save in WISeID always stays under their control, is encrypted with strong keys derived from a password that they choose and only they know and is never communicated to third parties.
About OISTE.ORG
Founded in Switzerland in 1998, OISTE.ORG was created with the objectives of promoting the use and adoption of international standards to secure electronic transactions, expand the use of digital certification and ensure the interoperability of certification authorities’ e-transaction systems. The OISTE Foundation is a not for profit organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, regulated by article 80 et seq. of the Swiss Civil Code. OISTE is an organization in special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations (ECOSOC) and belongs to the Not-for-Profit constituency (NPOC) of the ICANN. http://www.oiste.org/.
Mission: transfer the control and management of technologies dealing with Internet Trust and digital identities to neutral authorities working for the public interest. Vision: an Internet where users engage in online transactions and communications under systems of digital identity management that offer robust protection against fraud and theft, while protecting the fundamental right to privacy.
About WISeKey
WISeKey (SIX Swiss Exchange: WIHN) is a leading global cybersecurity company currently deploying large scale digital identity ecosystems for people and objects using Blockchain, AI and IoT respecting the Human as the Fulcrum of the Internet. WISeKey Microprocessors Secures the pervasive computing shaping today’s Internet of Everything. WISeKey IoT has an install base of over 1.5 billion microchips in virtually all IoT sectors (connected cars, smart cities, drones, agricultural sensors, anti-counterfeiting, smart lighting, servers, computers, mobile phones, crypto tokens etc.). WISeKey is uniquely positioned to be at the edge of IoT as our semiconductors produce a huge amount of Big Data that, when analyzed with Artificial Intelligence (AI), can help industrial applications to predict the failure of their equipment before it happens.
Our technology is Trusted by the OISTE/WISeKey’s Swiss based cryptographic Root of Trust (“RoT”) provides secure authentication and identification, in both physical and virtual environments, for the Internet of Things, Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence. The WISeKey RoT serves as a common trust anchor to ensure the integrity of online transactions among objects and between objects and people. For more information, visit www.wisekey.com.
Press and investor contacts:
WISeKey International Holding Ltd
Company Contact: Carlos Moreira
Chairman & CEO
Tel: +41 22 594 3000
info@wisekey.com
WISeKey Investor Relations (US)
Contact: Lena Cati
The Equity Group Inc.
Tel: +1 212 836-9611
lcati@equityny.com
Disclaimer:
This communication expressly or implicitly contains certain forward-looking statements concerning WISeKey International Holding Ltd and its business. Such statements involve certain known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which could cause the actual results, financial condition, performance or achievements of WISeKey International Holding Ltd to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. WISeKey International Holding Ltd is providing this communication as of this date and does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements contained herein as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
This press release does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities, and it does not constitute an offering prospectus within the meaning of article 652a or article 1156 of the Swiss Code of Obligations or a listing prospectus within the meaning of the listing rules of the SIX Swiss Exchange. Investors must rely on their own evaluation of WISeKey and its securities, including the merits and risks involved. Nothing contained herein is, or shall be relied on as, a promise or representation as to the future performance of WISeKey.