SAN FRANCISCO–StepNexus, the premier provider of the world’s first open, high-security, multi-application, smart card operating system MULTOS, announced the acquisition of GlobalPlatform on MULTOS technology from Sentry. The application enables any MULTOS chip to support GlobalPlatform application services and remote application communication.

The GlobalPlatform on MULTOS Technology is now available for all major MULTOS platforms, including Keycorp, Renesas/Hitachi and Samsung. Terms of the deal between the two privately held companies are not available.

“The acquisition of Sentry’s GlobalPlatform on MULTOS technology means that the StepNexus flagship platform, MULTOS, can now provide compatibility with existing GlobalPlatform systems,” said John Wood, CEO of StepNexus, Inc. “We can now offer enhanced security of the MULTOS environment and efficiency of the StepNexus MULTOS content management mechanism.”

“Sentry is pleased that our work on GlobalPlatform for MULTOS has been recognized by StepNexus,” said Brian McKeon, president of Sentry. “We know that the Sentry GlobalPlatform applications enrich the MULTOS operating system for application developers, enabling faster application development and smaller applications due to sharing of common components. The market reach of StepNexus will ensure that all application developers can now access these benefits.”

GlobalPlatform + MULTOS Sentry has developed the GlobalPlatform 2.2 specifications, which include a definition of a GlobalPlatform runtime environment on MULTOS, and which have now been released in March of 2006. The Sentry(PM) GlobalPlatform implementation on MULTOS provides the following enhanced services to application developers:

–Secure Channels - ISO7816 standards based cryptographic services such as data encryption and message authentication.

–Application support for processData(), unwrap(), wrap(), decryptData(). The processData() function simplifying management of the INITIALISE UPDATE and EXTERNAL AUTHENTICATE processing for developers.

–Default Issuer Security Domain with support for standard Global Platform three keyset (ENC, MAC, KEK).

–Common GLOBAL PIN/CHV management. All applications can share a common PIN/CHV and GlobalPlatform on MULTOS providing a simpler experience for cardholders, no need for repeated PIN/CHV presentation when applications are reselected.

MULTOS: The Platform for Secure Card Services As StepNexus’ flagship smart card system, MULTOS is the world’s highest security, open standard smart card platform and the Global MULTOS Key Management Authority. It allows card issuers and application providers to share space on a single chip platform. A range of applications ranging from payment, authentication, digital identity, biometrics, loyalty, and contactless ticketing may securely reside on a MULTOS powered chip. More than 50 million MULTOS smart cards have been issued in more than 30 countries, in projects ranging from banking, national identity, campus security, secure ID and transit.

About Sentry Sentry was formed in 1997 as a project management consultancy for IT companies. Sentry is based in Sydney, Australia, and is privately-owned. Today, Sentry has expanded from project management to include development and evaluation of projects, business cases, project risk assessment, IT security and, in particular, user authentication in private and public IT networks. Including specific expertise with the emerging need for smartcards and other hardware tokens. Sentry is able to draw on a large number of partners and products to provide security solutions for your needs.

About StepNexus: StepNexus is a joint venture between Oak Hill Venture Partners, Keycorp, Hitachi and MasterCard International, dedicated to extending trusted environments to remote devices. StepNexus acquired all intellectual property and operations for MULTOS - the world’s highest security, open standard smart card platform and the global MULTOS KMA (Key Management Authority). The company also owns Nectar(TM), the first implementation of Microsoft .NET on smartcards. StepNexus’ secure packets content delivery mechanism enables device issuers of any StepNexus platform to permit third-party content providers to deliver additional services while maintaining security and the trusted environment. For more information visit www.stepnexus.com.