Thawte Consulting is a certificate authority (CA) for X.509 certificates. Thawte was founded in 1995 by Mark Shuttleworth in South Africa, Thawte was the first certificate authority to issue SSL certificates to public entities outside of the United States, quickly accounting for 40% of the global SSL market. In 2000, Thawte was acquired by VeriSign, Inc. and has become a key member of the VeriSign family of trust brands. To date, Thawte has issued more than 945,000 SSL and code signing certificates since 1995, protecting identities and transactions in over 240 countries.