Verifying Digital Information Outside of the Organization


As anonymous sales and transactions increase through the Internet and on-line systems, people, companies and organizations are being asked for private information concerning themselves in order to establish trust with their trading partners . In some cases, the information is reasonable and often public such as addresses, phone numbers and third-party references such as banks.

Due in large part to increases in identity theft, online fraud and online theft, system and network access is being denied to anyone unwilling to share security data to validate their identity. The Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) has been developed to share and confirm private information between two parties unwilling to share their secrets but who need to conduct business.

PKI bridges the public and private communities that demand guarantees for authenticity and non- repudiation of transactions. Trusted third parties hold the public keys used to de-encrypt messages and transactions sent with the user s private key. Similar in concept to both a customer and merchant trusting a credit card company to properly bill the customer s account and pay the merchant s account, PKI offers a stable and verifiable way for people to digitally sign documents, make large purchases and authorize medical treatments , among other uses.

The ability to share digital signatures and other files should be apparent to senior managers and executives. The savings in paper documents, waiting time and mailing fees (compared to an instant digital signature) can add up to millions of dollars per year for large organizations, and can be large savings for smaller groups. PKI requires acceptance by the legal and financial communities to be fully effective, and several large corporations (such as Citibank) have started to use digital signatures where legally possible.




Information Technology Security. Advice from Experts
Information Technology Security. Advice from Experts
ISBN: 1591402484
EAN: N/A
Year: 2004
Pages: 113

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net