Encryption, Online-Style

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By Bruce Caldwell

Hoping to set a standard for online commerce, Microsoft Corp. and Visa International signed a letter of intent on Nov. 8 to jointly deliver encryption technology that will bring security both to credit-card users and the companies that sell goods and services over public and private networks.

Encryption provides a code for online data that can only be deciphered by certain parties. Encryption capabilities based on technology from RSA Data Security Inc. will be developed for Microsoft's Windows and Windows NT operating systems, says Laura Jennings, senior director of marketing and business development for Microsoft's advanced consumer technology division. The techno logy will work with the Visanet payment system to authenticate buyers and sellers and secure transactions.

Microsoft and Visa will publicize the technology by releasing its specifications to other software manufacturers and credit-card systems when the system is complete sometime in late 1995. "The challenge is to make bank-card transactions on public networks secure," explains Carol Benson, VP of advanced payment systems at Visa.

Hearty Approval

"We applaud what Microsoft and Visa are doing," says Cindy Fuller, associate director for the Accredited Standards Committee X9, founded in 1976 by the American Bankers Association to establish standards for electronic financial transactions. "There is serious potential for fraud if the wrong individual captures information."

Standards governing computer-to-computer transactions do exist. But there is no standard protecting consumer transactions conducted over telephones, PCs, or other devices that use public networks to access remote co mputer systems.

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