SET – Secure Electronic Transaction

Setting The Stage For Safe Internet Shopping

-Jignesh Shah-

-Riyaz Malbari-

History/Background:

-Internet shopping didn’t quite pick up as consumers considered financial transactions over the internet, unsafe-Lacks the one on one transaction feeling.-Visa & MC came up with the idea what we call as SET.

Advantages:

-Privacy: Uses 1024 bit public key cryptography which renders the intercepted message unreadable !-Integrity: Hashing & signing ensures message sent is unaltered.-Authentication: Uses digital certificates to ensure the parties are really who they claim to be.

How SET Works:

Components:Cardholder

Merchant

Acquirer Gateway

Certification Authority

Merchant’s Cardholder’s

Bank Bank

1. Cardholder initializes purchase 2. Merchant verifies funds

3. Acquirer authorizes purchase &

Verifies merchant’s certificate5. Requests payment4. Order is

confirmed

6. Makes transfers & provides payment to merchant

How safe is SET?

-Uses 1024–bit cipher keys, making it one of the strongest encryption applications.

-If we use 100 computers each processing 10 MIPS, it would take 2.8 x 10 11 years to break just ONE encrypted message !!!!

Source: http://www.rsa.com/set/html/howstrong.html

SET versus SSL

-SET was developed specifically for payment transaction. SSL simply encrypts the communication channel between cardholder & merchant website and its not backed by any financial institution.

- Compare 128-bit encryption with that to SET !

SET versus SSL:

-SET also authenticates each participant as its backed by CA & financial institutions.

-SET provides security throughout the entire transaction process. SSL provides security only between cardholder and merchant.

Concept of Dual Signature :

Alice Bob

Bank

Certificate Issuance:Electronic representation of payment card/brand

Must be approved by the Acquirer gateway

Payment Processing :

• Cardholder registeration• Merchant registeration• Purchase request • Payment authorisation• Payment capture

Drawbacks:

Slow Expensive Not portable

References:

http://www.setco.org http://www.wolrath.com/set.html http://www.MasterCard.com

THANK YOU !!!