WISeCoin IoT CryptoCurrency Smart Payment secured by WISekey Microprocessor technology received strong attention from the car industry at the Hannover Messe 2018 event

ZUG, GENEVA, Switzerland – April 30, 2018 – WISeKey International Holding Ltd (WISeKey) (SIX:WIHN), a leading Swiss cybersecurity and IoT solutions company today announced that its WISeCoin IoT CryptoCurrency received strong attention and positive feedback, at the Hannover Messe 2018 event, from the smart car manufacturers and users. 

The Hannover Messe 2018 event, one of the world’s largest industrial technology trade fairs, attracted more than a quarter of a million visitors, who came to explore the next generation of IoT technology, which has increased its focus on the use of cryptocurrencies such as WISeCoin, for robotics, automation and machine to machine payments.

The WISeCoin IoT CryptoCurrency benefits from WISeKey’s standardization and neutrality assets, key factors needed to achieve interoperability, and its vast experience in working with leading European automobile manufacturers to provide cybersecurity services for connected cars.

Currently, WISeKey via its affiliate WISeKey QuoVadis provides PKI Services to a growing number of smart car manufacturers and its ISTANA PKI platform is already active in several large-scale projects. Virtually all new cars on the market today include electronic technologies that could pose vulnerabilities to hacking or privacy intrusions if data security is not addressed. For example, smart cars without cybersecurity protection technology could allow hackers to gain remote access by exploiting vulnerabilities in their ecosystem of connected components and online services. As the number of cars connected to the Internet is growing quickly (to over a quarter of a billion by year 2020, as estimated by Gartner), smart car manufactures are working to identify and reduce potential hacking vulnerabilities in their vehicles.  BI Intelligence expects 94 million connected cars to be sold in 2021, and for 82% of all cars sold during that year to be connected. This represents a compound annual growth rate of 35%, from 21 million connected cars in 2016. In recent years, the security protections of smart cars have expanded using proven IoT technologies. There is increased use of “secure element” chips provided by WISeKey Semiconductor to authenticate individual car components within the vehicle itself and to the online services it interacts with, and to ensure that only legitimate software is installed in the car.

The WISeCoin IoT CryptoCurrency Smart Payment allows the ability for connected objects secured by WISeKey Semiconductors to pay other connected objects using WISeCoin. WISeKey has tested the technology on connected cars allowing a connected car secured by WISeKey to pay for electricity, gas and parking through the integration of WISeCoin crypto wallets at the Secure Element Chip level.  

Each connected object is equipped with WISeKey’s Secure Element, called VaultIC184, consisting of a tamper resistant silicon chip, based on a state-of-the-art secure microcontroller allowing device manufacturers an easy integration of the chip, as well as a provisioning service, transferring the burden of device personalization to WISeKey’s secure Personalization Center. WISeKey is using its own cryptocurrency WISeCoin as a method of payment between connected objects. WISeCoin uses the latest blockchain technology and works as part of payment system using WISeKey Blockchain-as-a-Service (“BaaS”) technology offerings. To empower a seamless cryptocurrency enabled for IoT connections, WISeCoin is supplemented with highly secured solutions such as biometrics-driven hardware wallets, integrated exchange platforms, MicroChips Blockchain enabled semiconductors, and NFC-based contactless payment solutions. WISeKey’s objective with WISeCoin is to become an emerging powerhouse in the global cryptocurrency market by supporting the development of economies built on Blockchain technology.

Moreover, a versatile flavor of the security module, VaultIC405S, implementing next to the specific Sigfox requirements general purpose Elliptic Curve Public Key cryptography PKI primitives, complements the product offer and is a perfect solution for companies providing multi-network Internet of Things solutions requiring a state-of-the-art security coverage on all network types to execute cryptocurrency payments between the connected objects. Designed for low cost, power and surface constrained devices, it proposes industry standard I2C connectivity, very low power consumption and a very small footprint.

VaultIC184 and VaultIC405S are part of WISeKey’s global end-to-end scalable security framework WISeKeyIoT, a Public Key Infrastructure based overall response designed to mitigate ever increasing risks of cyberattacks in IoT. Securing vulnerable internet-connected devices, from security cameras to smartphones, is essential to allow these connected devices to perform secure cryptocurrency payments.  Unsecure connected devices can be hijacked by hackers and turned into tools to mine cryptocurrencies, and the computing power of all these gadgets can be used to mine the digital coins.

About WISeKey:

WISeKey (SIX Swiss Exchange: WIHN) is a leading global cybersecurity company currently deploying large scale digital identity ecosystems with a patented process. 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.

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