Identity theft continues and has become a significant problem
for businesses and theircustomers. According to Gartner, about £8
billion in losses were reported from identitytheft between April
2004 and May 2005. While these losses themselves are
significant,even more worrisome has been the negative impact on
companies whose consumers havebeen victims of these breaches.
Account churn, lower transaction volume and even lowershare prices
have made the extent of the losses hard to bear for most
companies.
Given the impact of identity theft on online businesses and the
regulatory guidancearound strengthening authentication, more and
more businesses are evaluating authenticationoptions for their
online consumer base. If your customers reach your business through
theinternet, you know how important it is to securely identify
them. Weak authentication hasled to Internet identity theft,
phishing, and the prevalence of online financial fraud. As
moreconsumers use computers and mobile devices for shopping,
managing their finances, andaccessing health care information, the
risk of fraud and identity theft increases.
For many years, companies have used strong authentication to
secure employee andbusiness-partner access to corporate networks
and applications. The risk of enablingunauthorised access to
corporate assets justified the investment and change in
behaviourneeded to deploy strong authentication and made for a
fairly straightforward risk/rewardevaluation for the company.
However, because these corporate solutions were designed forlower
volume deployments, using them for securing consumer applications
is not entirelyfeasible. Scaling these enterprise authentication
solutions to millions of users in a cost-effectivemanner is nearly
impossible. In order to address the unique requirements of this
newconsumer authentication segment, an entirely new approach to
authentication is required.VeriSign® Identity Protection Services
(VIP) is a comprehensive suite of identity protectionand
authentication services which enable consumer-facing applications
to provide a secureonline experience for end users at a reasonable
cost. The VIP Services are hosted by VeriSignand are accessed
through standard network protocols for easy integration into
existingInternet applications. VIP enables both invisible security
through VeriSign® Identity ProtectionFraud Detection Service as
well as more visible security through VeriSign® IdentityProtection
Authentication Service. To minimise costs and maximise security by
sharingintelligence and resources, The VIP Services will be backed
by the power of the VIPNetwork. The VIP Network enables the sharing
of authentication credentials through theVIP Shared Authentication
Network and the sharing of fraud intelligence through the VIPFraud
Intelligence Network. The unique values of VIP include:
1. Comprehensive – VeriSign® Identity Protection (VIP) includes
both invisible(VeriSign® Identity Protection Fraud Detection
Service) as well as visible (VeriSign®Identity Protection
Authentication Service) means of securing online identities.
2. Easy – VIP enables a higher security experience for the
consumer in a way that isfriendly to their current Web lifestyle.
VIP’s unique service based approach allows theorganisation to
outsource complexity.WHITE PAPER4
3. Intelligent – The VIP Network will allow an organisation to
‘see more’ and clearlythe more you see, the more you know. Through
VeriSign’s operation of the DNS/internet infrastructure as well as
its shared authentication infrastructure, VeriSign has a uniqueand
comprehensive view into internet-level intelligence not available
to othersoftware-based solutions.
4. Trusted – VeriSign has long been a provider of authentication
services to over 500,000 Web sites: over 93% of the Fortune 500,
the world’s 40 largest banks, and 47 out of the top 50 e-Commerce
sites. As a result, the VeriSign Secure Site Seal hasa high level
of significance with the consumer and has long been associated
withtrusted commerce.
This VeriSign white paper explores how the core components of
VIP work and how theyfit together in the VIP Network.