WISeKey to Assist in the Fight Against Wildlife Illicit Trade with its Digital Identity NanoSealRT NFC Secure Element

WISeKey to Assist in the Fight against Wildlife Illicit Trade with its Digital Identity NanoSealRT NFC Secure Element
Coronavirus pandemic may be an important moment in the fight against wildlife illegal trade

Geneva, Switzerland – March 31, 2020: WISeKey International Holding Ltd (WIHN.SW, NASDAQ : WKEY) (“WISeKey”), a Swiss based cybersecurity and IoT company, today announced that it is using its NanoSealRT Near Field Communication (NFC) secure element in the fight against wildlife illicit trade.

The illegal trade of wildlife has evolved into one of the world’s largest black markets, has become a major and growing threat to biodiversity, and is a source of funding for organized crime and global terrorist networks.  Additionally, a wildlife food market in the Chinese city of Wuhan, an important hub in the lucrative trade of wildlife, is now the assumed origin of the coronavirus pandemic.

Many countries and health organizations worldwide have set up comprehensive approaches to address wildlife crime and reduce demand for and interrupt the flow of illegal wildlife products but this illegal trade is very difficult to regulate and control and technology can help to provide authentication and traceability.

WISeKey has engaged the industry and the private sector to address these threats using the anti-illicit trade declaration signed last year in Zermatt. Despite considerable efforts from global organizations, governments and activists from the private sector, Illicit Trade remains prevalent and continues to pose a significant threat to the global economy. The Anti-Illicit Trade Declaration outlines the steps that need to be taken to stop Illicit Trade, which as governments and private sector signatories agree, needs to be treated as a serious crime.

Today, with the digitalization of economies and recent technology developments, the fundamentals of trade are transforming in both legal and illegal economies. Improved global networks, real time data sharing systems and online platforms enable a more efficient supply of illicit products and increase the number of parties participating in this market, creating significant challenges for legitimate manufacturers, governments and other operators within affected industries.

Therefore, illicit trade has become a major contributor to discrepancies in wealth between the developing and developed world, while fueling devastating conflicts and undermining the legitimacy of countries. In effect, illicit trade is the conduit that facilitates destabilization and dangerous activities in nearly every sphere of the global economy. As a result – new forms of Illicit Trade have appeared and will continue to develop making the fight against it more complex and transnational than ever.

The illegal wildlife trade is a major component of the overall illicit trade big business. The range of estimates from international organisations including the OECD, INTERPOL and TRAFFIC-International put it at between US$7-23 billion annually.

WISeKey and OISTE.ORG has over 20 years of experience fighting illicit trade and developing a holistic polices and technology approach to effectively combat the problem. These technologies are:

·WISeKey’s WISeAuthentic Blockchain, provides protection against illicit trade through a trusted private blockchain in a closed user group environment, and strong cybersecurity technologies combined with IoT traceability.

Blockchain technology can be very effective as the trusted cloud-based ledger ensures that the identity of the product can’t be duplicated, manipulated or faked, and increased visibility in parts of the supply chain promotes an unprecedented level of trust. It means governments can better protect citizens, while business partners can be certain trading documents are real.  Consumers can check the quality and provenance of products, and banks can reduce processing time. And, it’s all paperless. Combining the blockchain technology together with our WISeAuthentic PKI platform, leverage even further the unified way to shield these brands from the harmful effects of illicit trade, while enhancing transparency into their end consumers and the entire ecosystem.

      ·WISeKey’s NanoSealRT inaugurates the new NanoSeal product family and architecture for consumer products authentication and traceability. Built around a robust proprietary cryptographic algorithm for data protection and digital signature, a 2kbit long life secure EEPROM non-volatile memory with multiple independent security areas and contact or NFC based communication interfaces, this versatile architecture can be attached to any product to be protected and tracked including sports apparel, drone battery packs, e-cigarettes refills, parcels, medicines and high-tech accessories.
             
            WISeKey’s NanoSealRT is the only NFC Forum Type 5 chip for tags which offers a patent-pending authentication algorithm based on NFC Data Exchange Format (NDEF) that works with both Android and IOS 12 devices, namely more than 2 billion NFC enabled devices. Its tamper/opening detection is a plus when it comes to enriching the consumer experience and reach. The communication with the object is simplified from the manufacturing plant to the field thanks to a powerful ISO15693 compatible interface.

            “The NanoSeal complements the existing VaultIC1xx product family for large volume consumer markets where robustness and cost effectiveness are a must,” said Olivier Debelleix, Director of Brand Protection & Wearable Security Business Unit for WISeKey. “Although particularly designed to enhance WISeKey’s WISeAuthentic platform for brand protection, the NanoSealRT is packaged to integrate with any logistics and traceability platform giving each object a unique identity.”

About WISeKey
WISeKey (NASDAQ: WKEY; 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 secure 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 https://www.wisekey.com/.

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