Is your Web site earning its full potential?
24% of shoppers do not purchase online at all due to security concerns.1
54% of UK online shoppers abandoned a purchase for security concerns.2
57% believe that online businesses do not do
enough to protect them.3
Increase confidence at transaction time with
the green address bar
Phishing and Online Fraud Undermine Customer Confidence
Phishing and online fraud have created doubt
and concern among online shoppers. To regain their trust, site owners
need an easy, reliable way to show customers that their transactions
are secure and they are who they say they are. Security vendors and
Internet browsers have combined forces to establish the Extended Validation
Standard for SSL Certificates (previously known as ’High Assurance’).
The Green Address Bar of Extended Validation
Microsoft® Internet Explorer 7 is the first
browser to use the new standard. When shoppers visit a Web site secured
with an Extended Validation SSL Certificate, IE7 will trigger the address
bar to turn green and display the name of the organisation listed in
the certificate as well as the certificate’s security vendor. The browser
and the security vendor control the display, making it difficult for
phishers and counterfeiters to hijack your brand and your customers.
Firefox and Opera have announced intentions to support Extended Validation
SSL in upcoming releases.
How to Obtain an Extended Validation SSL Certificate
The Extended Validation Standard defines the
process for certificate validation and the method of display. To enable
the heightened security features in new browsers, a Certificate Authority
(CA) must adopt the high-assurance certificate validation standard and
pass an audit. The validation process requires the CA to authenticate
the requestor’s domain ownership, organisational identity, employment
and authority prior to issuance of the certificate. Buy VeriSign® Secure
Site Pro with EV SSL Certificates.
SSL as Competitive Advantage
If your site displays these trust marks and
your competitor’s site does not, you appear to be more trusted and legitimate,
a competitive advantage in the e-commerce world. For businesses with
a high profile brand, using Extended Validation SSL is an effective
defence against phishing scams. Customers will learn to look for the
green bar before they enter sensitive information online.
Maximise Online Sales Potential
Research shows that 54% of online shoppers
have abandoned an online purchase because they didn’t get a sense of
security when it came time to provide payment information, and 57% of
those shoppers report that they would have completed the transaction
had a recognised trust mark, such as the VeriSign Secured™ Seal, been
present (TNS Research, August 2006). Because visitors will see the name
of your Extended Validation SSL provider in the security status bar,
it is more important than ever to choose VeriSign, the Web’s most trusted
security provider.
All VeriSign Secured Seals come with EV Upgrader
EV
Upgrader™ is the first ever technology that enables all IE7
on Windows™ Vista and XP client systems to display the green address
bar, organisation name, and other Extended Validation interface conventions.
EV Upgrader works by prompting existing root update functionality in
IE7 for Windows XP on visiting client systems and therefore enabling
the IE7 client to recognise the SSL Certificate's EV status. In the
absence of a root update, no Windows XP client can ever see the green
bar on your site.
Once a client system has a specific EV SSL
root installed (by way of EV Upgrader or manual installation, from the
Microsoft® Web site, by the user) that client will experience 'green
bar' behaviour whenever connecting to a valid EV SSL Certificate on
that same root. Note that this root installation affects only the root
in question and does not enable that client for EV behaviour with any
other root.
1 Forrester Research, December 2005.
2 TNS Research, August 2006.
3 Forrester Research, December 2005.