VeriSign To Boost Security For B2B E-Commerce

SAN MATEO (04/20/2000) - Verisign Inc. hopes to enable faster and more secure deployment of e-commerce transactions with its B2B Trust services package introduced this week.

B2B Trust services is designed to enable enterprises and their trading partners to incorporate authentication, payment, and validation for high-volume transactions conducted over extranets, Internet marketplaces, and business-to-business exchanges, said Anil Pereira, vice president of Valicert's Internet Services Group.

Trust services include different models for buyers and suppliers to obtain digital credentials for authentication and payment services to process various payment types used in e-commerce such as Level 3 purchasing card support and Automated Clearing House (ACH). It also provides "proof" of real-time validation services generated digital signatures, receipts, and records.

"It's a way of getting digital certificates into the hands of buyers and suppliers," Pereira said. "Now what you can do is go online and transact with a supplier you've never dealt with before."

General Electric Co.'s Global eXchange Services is using VeriSign's Trust services to authenticate more than 100,000 of its trading partners. The company chose VeriSign's Trust services based on infrastructure capabilities, said Patrice Bougeios, Global Product manager for Internet Security at GE's Global eXchange Services.

"I actually had a fully operational trust model and certificate authority within 45 days," Bougeios said. "I had some different [infrastructure] requirements, like being able to interface with my billing center, and they could answer that."

GE's Global eXchange Services is embracing the supply-chain b-to-b landscape by positioning itself as the outside entity traders turn to in order to authenticate other active members of the b-to-b community.

There is a need to bring simpler means to implement validation and authentication technology, such as what VeriSign is offering, said Charles Rutstein, senior analyst at Forrester Research, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

"Everybody seems to realize that's likely to be the end game, but there's been so much pain that's never happened," Rutstein said. "Services like this make it easier to get there because somebody else takes care of the administration hassles."

VeriSign's Trust services are now available except digital receipt and dispute resolution, which should arrive in 90 days. Pricing is application-specific and is based on transactions and volumes under consideration.

VeriSign Inc., in Mountain View, California, is at www.verisign.com.