• PAGE ONE
• INDEX
• HOME

Secure Net deals via SafeScrypt

Chitra Phadnis

BANGALORE, May 6

``LOOK before you click'' is the latest warning in cybercafes as SafeScrypt, the digital certification and digital signatures company, tries to educate users on the importance of security on the Net.

``For instance, there is this virus going around that takes users logging on to `msn.com' straight to a fake site called `9msn.com', which looks like the original in every way. You may end up giving away valuable personal information to hackers without k nowing it,'' said Mr Atul Saran, Managing Director, SafeScrypt.

Digital certification and digital signatures could go a long way in preventing cyber crimes and allow the full potential of the Net to be realised, he said.

SafeScrypt, promoted by Satyam and an affiliate of VeriSign (often called the Fort Knox of the Internet world) is ready with the infrastructure to certify individuals, Web sites and devices in India.

Once the company validates and authenticates a user or a company, it gives them a digital certification, which can reside on a PC, a WAP phone, cable modems or even a smart card that the user can carry around. This, in turn, generates a unique, complex s tring of numbers, a digital signature (not to be confused with a digitised signature, Mr Saran pointed out).

The digital signature gets appended to any mail that is `signed' by the user and assures the receiver that it is a genuine message.

More importantly, with the IT Law making the digital signature acceptable in a court of law, it offers the `non repudiation' clause. In other words, a sender cannot order a transaction and later say he never did it because his signature is there to prove conclusively that it came from him.

In the case of a Web site, only certified sites allow secure transmission between the user's browser and the site itself. The secure logo on the certified site leads to information about the company that the site belongs to (giving away fake MSNs at once ).

``E-commerce and online trading apart, digital signatures can explode usage in areas such as e-governance, Internet banking and supply chain management once legally acceptable documents can be sent online,'' said Mr Saran.

Filing of income tax and commercial tax returns will finally be possible because the documents are `signed'. ``Imagine the amount of paperwork, time, data entry and storage problems this would solve,'' he said. ``Even within an organisation, you could ge t the signature of the boss if he is away and not have to wait for him to come back.''

Companies could allow suppliers access to their intranets, provided they identified themselves through a signature.

SafeScrypt visualises an investment of $ 5-7 million over three years in the infrastructure. ``Because this is high security, we will also need to constantly upgrade technology and keep ahead of the hackers,'' Mr Saran said.

SafeScrypt expects the certification authority (CA) licence to come in two months' time. Till then, the company is committed to promoting the concept of secure Internet. In the last six months, it has participated in 30 seminars and campaigned at 700 cyb ercafes spreading its message.