Utimaco has announced the acquisition of GEOBRIDGE Corporation, in a move that expands the IT security provider’s key management portfolio for the financial industry.
Post-takeover, the cryptographic key management company’s employees and customers will be integrated into Utimaco’s Information Security business to offer enhanced products and services to customers.
The firm said GEOBRIDGE’s keyBRIDGE platform complements its own Atalia product line of hardware security modules (HSM), enabling a comprehensive offering for the key injection at point of sale and management of cryptographic keys.
"The KeyBRIDGE platform combined with our Atalla hardware security module will offer greater flexibility to financial institutions and payment providers to inject and remotely manage cryptographic keys, simplifying security for our customers even as the environment grows more complex." commented Malte Pollmann, chief strategy officer of Utimaco.
"By acquiring GEOBRIDGE, we are taking the next step in developing Utimaco from a product vendor to a solution provider and complementing our solution portfolio in a meaningful way in order to be able to offer customers an integrated security solution."
Founded in 1997, GEOBRIDGE has established itself as one of the first system integrators for encryption methods, as well as a key management provider for payment products and services.
Having gained a deep insight into the challenges of the marketplace, the business participated in the development of international standards such as ASC X9, PCI and EMVco.
GEOBRIDGE CEO Laura Way said the Utimaco takeover would now leave the firm “better positioned” to support and provide additional services to its client-base around the globe.
"The industry faces migration and interoperability challenges," added Jason Way, GEOBRIDGE’s Chief Technology Officer.
"Our customers need to shift to Advanced Encryption Standard or AES and adoption of key bundling while maintaining support for derived unique key per transaction (DUKPT) with a solution that is already validated for compliance through 2026. Together withUtimaco we have a valuable head start in meeting the challenges of the future."
Utimaco’s acquisition of GEOBRIDGE is expected to be closed in the first quarter of 2020, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions.
