TrustKey, a subsidiary of FIDO originator eWBM, exported FIDO security keys to Nokia in Finland earlier this year, marking the company's entry into the Nordic market. TrustKey CEO Jinseo Lee said "Nokia, a technology-driven company, is Finland's largest global company with 80,000 employees and many partners. We are pleased to provide our TrustKey solution to Nokia, which is on its way to becoming a market leader in telecommunications equipment, with sales of €21.9 billion in 2020."

A triumph of domestic technology!

The Nordic region has been a difficult market for domestic integrated authentication security companies to export to, as TrustKey’s competitor Yubico, a hardware authentication security key provider, is headquartered in Sweden. The export of TrustKey’s FIDO solution to Nokia in Finland is a significant achievement, especially as it was highly praised for its solid core. TrustKey said “In the FIDO wave, which has now become a global phenomenon, the most talked about topic is price competitiveness. In fact, it’s a trend that our competitors are following. We have been focusing on improving our price competitiveness and design quality for a long time in addition to our solid technology. We expect to further expand our market position with the competitive advantage of being able to supply security MCUs directly as SoCs instead of outsourcing.” 

Going to Japan!

TrustKey announced that it is expanding into the Japanese market by partnering with an indigenous global software company based in Japan. Having pioneered the Japanese FIDO market with its parent company eWBM a few years ago and partnered with local general distribution and trading group Shinden, TrustKey has been receiving positive interest since the end of last year, and the collaboration with the global software company represents a significant opportunity for the company to take the lead in the market. TrustKey said “Japan is the most organized market in Asia, and there are a lot of companies with future source technologies. The software company we’re talking to has OEMed TrustKey to deploy FIDO security solutions to global customers. They’ve actually asked us if we can mass produce their product with their UI, and we’ve given them the green light.” TrustKey general manger Heesik Yang said “Zero Trust is something that is already being pushed at the government level in Europe and the US. In the Japanese market, which has been embracing FIDO for quite some time, there is also a sentiment that hardware should be actively adopted beyond the mobile level. Of course, the recent strengthening of the cybersecurity alliance between the United States and Japan may also have played a role. Currently, there is a consensus on FIDO certification, and there is an atmosphere that big tech and the financial sector should join the trend of strengthening security certification. The Japanese SW company that commissioned us also has a high need for FIDO as it is a company that provides security solutions in addition to building global solutions. We are looking forward to collaborating on this project as it is a very large-scale project.” 

▲ eWBM / CEO Jinseo Lee

Spreading excellence of TrustKey to the world!

While TrustKey has focused on international collaborations in the U.S., Japan, and Southeast Asia, the company has recently shown interest in Europe. TrustKey said “Last month, a local company that consults on security for the Austrian government informed us that they would like to implement TrustKey’s solution, and we will be supplying the product soon. From our point of view, this is a good sign that we can make an impact in the European market.“ In fact, the Austrian government introduced two security keys to usher in the digital ID era. One was YubiKey, introduced by Swedish company Yubico, and the other was a fingerprint security key from TrustKey, a security authentication brand of domestic fabless semiconductor company eWBM. In particular, unlike YubiKey, which aims only for multi-factor authentication, TrustKey has attracted attention for its differentiation as a fingerprint-based FIDO security key that can present both authentication and login. In other words, it is considered to be competitive in that it can implement two factors at once with just one key. CEO Jinseo Lee said “In Singapore, where we’re currently working with, they’ve been impressed with our ability to fulfill all of their MFA requirements with a single key. They are also most interested in Zero Trust’s resource access control technology. As part of this, the European market is also in great need of FIDO certification. However, they seem to be reluctant to follow the US system, which is currently leading the global cybersecurity market. The European market, as well as globally, is at a point where governments, financial and public institutions, and others are being encouraged to commercialize FIDO security systems and are slowly adopting them. This is also the case in Austria, where our solution will be deployed. In this way, it is expected that the global market itself will become more organic if global companies introduce security certifications one after another in order to open a full-fledged FIDO security key market. “The U.S., the core of the cybersecurity alliance, as well as Europe, Japan, India, Australia, and South Korea are actively communicating about FIDO security. We plan to capture the global market by providing convenient and strong security authentication with one-key, one-pass, and price advantages. Our goal this year is to spread the excellence of our products to the world.” Meanwhile, eWBM and Trust Key, which are preparing for the second IoT defense security project this year, plan to achieve rapid commercialization with the goal of introducing all weapon system operation technologies that are being deployed in combat.