The Application of 3rd Party Certification Programme In Malaysia

MSC Trustgate.com Sdn Bhd is a licensed Certification Authority (CA) operating within the Multimedia Super Corridor. MSC Trustgate was incorporated in1999 and is licensed under the Digital Signature Act 1997 (DSA), to meet the growing need for secure open network communication and become the catalyst for the growth of e-commerce, both locally and across the ASEAN region. Trustgate's core business is to provide complete security solutions and leading trust services such as digital certification services, including digital certificates, cryptographic products, and software development which are needed by individuals, enterprises, government, and e-commerce service providers.

Nowadays we are living in a world which moving towards more and more virtual. Through the Internet people can do almost everything they wish such as online shopping, pay bills, online reservation, banking and so on which make our life easier. But there still have many people feel unsecured to sending or receiving sensitive information through online due to the increasing numbers of phishing cases. Thus, Secured Socket Layer(SSL) is the best solution to build user's trust through getting an SSL certificates for the relative website. Verisign is the leading SSL Certificate Authority.

Secure Socket Layer (SSL) is a technology developed by Netscape and adopted by all vendors who are offer the product that are related to web software for the exchanges between client and server. The essential functions of SSL is mutual authentication, data encryption, and data integrity for secure transactions. SSL certificate is an electronic file that enable secure confidential communications and identifies indivviduals and websites on the internet uniquely by serving as sort of a digital passport. It is possible to verify someone's claim that they have the right to use the key in order to prevent other people form using the keys to impersonate others users and ensure the involvement of all parties in a transaction with a complete security solution.

Certification Authority (CA) is a trusted third party. It must take steps to establish the identity of the people or organization to whom they issue the ID. Authentication is ensured when certificate is issued once establish with its organization's public keys and signs with Certification Authority's private key. Verisign SSL Certificates is the public encrypted key that Webmaster sends to CA which is a standard part of most web server and web browser packages when works in conjunction with the SSL technology. Verisign will review the credentials and check through all the background of organization to ensure that the claim of organization before issuing any server certificate. The browser will verify its business purpose through ID automatically when browser connects to a legitimate site with Verisign SSL Certificates. After that, information received by Web visitor is identical to encryption between browser and server and no modification is taken place.

Thus,the certification from 3rd party is needed to ensure the user's information traveled over the internet and reach to their destination safely. It can avoid our sent information being spammed, hacked and attacked by the macilious software such as virus, worms and trojan horse. In addition, the confidentiallity of customers towards the internet activities will be enhanced so that the implementation of 3rd party certification can improve customer's trust.