Red Herring Selects VeriSign For Prestigious Red Herring Top 100 Innovators Award

December 8, 2004; 11:47 PM

Mountain View, CA. and San Francisco, CA. - December 7, 2004 - VeriSign, Inc. (Nasdaq: VRSN), announced today that it has been selected as a Top 100 Innovator by Red Herring. VeriSign was given this prestigious award in recognition of its development of the Advanced Transaction Lookup and Signaling System (ATLAS), a sophisticated software platform designed to scale the Internet's core infrastructure, the Domain Name System (DNS), and support the convergence of voice and data networks.

"Innovations such as ATLAS are a result of VeriSign's tireless pursuit of leadership in technology," said Aristotle Balogh, senior vice president of operations and infrastructure at VeriSign, Inc. "The introduction of next generation services for the Internet and telecommunications networks is fundamentally dependant on scalable, secure systems such as ATLAS to quickly and easily introduce solutions for VoIP services and for incorporating multimedia communications."

ATLAS is a protocol agnostic convergence platform designed to connect any network, be it data or voice based. It has been built with future growth in mind in that it isn't just a bigger "box," but has intelligence built into it to allow for the system to scale to more than 100 billion queries per day and 25,000 updates per second. Currently, VeriSign processes more than 14 billion daily queries, on average, in its operation of .com and .net infrastructure. Additionally, ATLAS is incredibly reliable, allowing for greater than 99.999% data integrity and service availability, a must for a transaction system upon which the Internet and telecommunications networks rely.

As ATLAS handles more networks, such as the DNS system for the Internet, the Object Naming Systems (ONS) system for RFID/EPC Global Consortium, and telecommunications networks, the system gains further and further intelligence, making it the logical system to build and connect future networks. In addition, because ATLAS is a technology neutral convergence platform that can connect any network, be it data or voice based, it will be able to handle new protocols, allowing service providers to easily roll out new services.

"Selection for the Innovation 100 puts a company in an elite group. The editors worked hard to identify the companies who will benefit from the important technology trends in the coming year.'', said Joel Dreyfuss, Editor-in-Chief of Red Herring.

Red Herring's editorial staff evaluated over 1200 submissions from 900 companies. The editors used a careful analysis of financial data as well as subjective criteria, including quality of management, execution of strategy, and dedication to research and development.

About VeriSign
VeriSign, Inc. delivers intelligent infrastructure services that make the Internet and telecommunications networks more reliable and secure. Every day VeriSign helps thousands of businesses and millions of consumers conduct commerce and communications with confidence. Additional news and information about the company is available at http://www.verisign.com/.

Statements in this announcement other than historical data and information constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause VeriSign's actual results to differ materially from those stated or implied by such forward-looking statements. The potential risks and uncertainties include, among others, the uncertainty of future revenue and profitability and potential fluctuations in quarterly operating results due to such factors as the inability of VeriSign to successfully develop and market new products and services and customer acceptance of any new products or services; the possibility that VeriSign's announced new services may not result in additional customers, profits or revenues; and increased competition and pricing pressures. More information about potential factors that could affect the company's business and financial results is included in VeriSign's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including in the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2003 and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. VeriSign undertakes no obligation to update any of the forward-looking statements after the date of this press release.

About Red Herring
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Contact VeriSign: VeriSign Media Relations: Patrick Burns, [email protected], 703-948-4471 VeriSign Investor Relations: Tom McCallum, [email protected], 650-426-3744 Contact the Red Herring: [email protected]  650.428.2900