HSBC, the UK’s largest bank, is rolling out EV SSL security certificates from VeriSign to help prevent Phishing attacks and ID theft amongst customers. EV SSL is popular among larger commerce sites for the added layer of security it offers.
HSBC goes green with EV SSL. (IMG:J.Anderson)
“As e-criminals grow more sophisticated, financial services leaders like HSBC must always remain a step ahead to ensure the security and trust of our customers,” said Barry Jones, Senior Manager, Group IT Security at HSBC. “Deploying VeriSign Extended Validation SSL Certificates will allow us to send an instantly recognizable signal to our online banking customers, confirming that any personal information they supply on that page will go directly to HSBC and no one else”
An EV SSL Certificate will display easily understood visual cues in enabled high-security browsers to provide tangible assurance of a site’s authenticity. The address bar turns green, a lock icon appears next to the address, and a new field appears to the right of the URL in the high-security browser. This field will contain the name of the organization that owns the site (in this case HSBC) as well as the security provider that issued the certificate (VeriSign).
In the past, EV SSL has taken some heat. Some studies showed it didn’t help all, and others said it’s outright worthless. VeriSign disagrees. Sitting down with me at RSA, VeriSign's Tim Callan, VP of SSL business unit, showed me several examples of businesses noticing a severe drop in abandon rates after launching EV SSL. Current EV SSL customers such as eBay, PayPal, Charles Schwab, and Overstock.com have all publicly confirmed the VeriSign reports.
As for the consumer, there were some early studies, which showed that most were unaware or failed to even notice the color change in the address bar, let alone know what it means. (http://www.usablesecurity.org/papers/jackson.pdf) Now studies are showing that without the green bar the sites are rarely trusted. There is also a huge consumer push to educate consumers and businesses about EV SSL. (http://www.nomoreabandonedcarts.com)
The cost of the EV SSL cert is expensive, but Tim pointed out that in the end sales volume will cover the cost several times over. While that is true, there are also more alternatives to VeriSign when it comes to EV SSL. (Good list on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Validation_Certificate)
HSBC has an entire area dedicated to security for UK customers:
http://www.hsbc.co.uk/1/2/security
For more on EV SSL, see the Wikipedia article or head to www.VeriSign.com.
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