Certicom Appoints Karna Gupta as New Chief Executive Officer


MISSISSAUGA, Ontario - (January 8, 2008) - The Board of Directors of Certicom Corp. (TSX: CIC) (the "Company") today announced that it has appointed Karna Gupta as Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors, effective January 21, 2008, replacing Mr. Bernard Crotty, currently serving as President and Chief Executive Officer on an interim basis. Mr. Crotty will remain on the Board of Certicom. The Board of Directors also announces that Mr. Jeffrey S. Chisholm currently acting as Lead Director becomes Chairman of Certicom effective immediately.

"The Board is delighted to welcome a seasoned executive like Karna Gupta to lead the company in the execution of its growth strategy," said Jeffrey S. Chisholm, Chairman. "Karna is a proven innovator and strategic thinker with an impressive track record of developing and delivering next-generation software solutions to key markets, including mobility, enterprise and service providers. He has excelled at growing businesses globally and has built impressive customer relationships in North America, Europe and Asia. The Board also wishes to thank Mr. Crotty for his leadership and direction during this interim period."

Mr. Gupta most recently held the role of President for the Real-Time Billing Division of Comverse Technologies in New Jersey. In this role, he held profit and loss responsibility and managed all aspects of the product division, including developing the latest solutions for service providers, managing a globally-distributed workforce and serving a global customer base. His previous role in Comverse was Chief Marketing Officer for Comverse Americas. He also held the roles of the Business Development and CTO reporting to him.

Prior to his tenure with Comverse, Mr. Gupta held several executive leadership positions with Bell Canada, including Vice President, Product Development and Management. He was responsible for Competitive Network Services and under his leadership Bell Canada became a recognized world leader in Enhanced Services.

"Certicom is a dynamic company with strong potential and an important role to play as the leader in next-generation security solutions," said Mr. Gupta. "As the global leader in Elliptic Curve Cryptography, its emerging portfolio of complete security solutions is being embraced by industry leaders such as Bally Technologies and Texas Instruments. With our strong financial foundation Certicom is able to drive the global adoption of ECC, develop and defend our powerful portfolio of intellectual property and continue to meet the evolving needs of the marketplace."

Mr. Gupta holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree and a Master of Business Administration degree in Marketing and Finance from Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec. He has also attended executive development programs at Duke University, Harvard, MIT and the University of Western Ontario.

About Certicom

Certicom protects the value of content, applications and devices with government-approved security. Adopted by the National Security Agency (NSA) for government communications, Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) provides the most security per bit of any known public-key scheme. As the global leader in ECC, Certicom security offerings are currently licensed to more than 300 customers including General Dynamics, Motorola, Oracle, Research In Motion and Unisys. Founded in 1985, Certicom's corporate offices are in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada with worldwide sales and marketing headquarters in Reston, Virginia and offices in the U.S., Canada, Europe and China. Visit www.certicom.com.

Investors and Financial Analysts
Hervé Séguin
Chief Financial Officer
Certicom Corp.
(905) 501-3827
hseguin@certicom.com

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John Callahan
Director, Public Relations & Marketing Communications
Certicom Corp.
(703) 234-2357
jcallahan@certicom.com

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