REDMOND, Wash., and SANTA CLARA, Calif., July 9, 2002 — Microsoft Corp. and Arcot Systems Inc. today announced an alliance to integrate the Microsoft®
.NET Passport with the Arcot TransFort (TM) payment authentication platform. Card-issuing banks that support online authentication, such as the Verified by Visa and MasterCard Secure Payment Application (SPA) programs for Internet purchases, can enable cardholders to seamlessly link their personal .NET Passport account with the secure, online card authentication of TransFort. Cardholders can log on, shop and authenticate online purchases using a simple and familiar Passport sign-in and interface.
With more than 200 million user accounts, Microsoft .NET Passport has been a successful solution for enabling single sign-in on the Internet. Through its card processor, bank, and merchant aggregator partners and customers, the Arcot TransFort solution will enable more than 10,000 merchants and 3,100 issuing banks, and protect more than 300 million cardholders worldwide, making it the leading solution for online payment authentication. TransFort currently supports multiple means of authentication, including user name-password, physical smart cards and the ArcotID (TM) Software Smart Card. With .NET Passport as another option for authentication, consumers can simplify their Internet experience by using a single sign-in and user interface to access .NET-enabled sites and services, including those that employ Arcot’s solution for secure online shopping and credit card payment.
“Authentication continues to be an important enabling technology for the delivery of personalized services over the Internet, and is helping to usher in the next wave of innovation in e-commerce,” said Brian Arbogast, vice president of .NET Core Services Platform at Microsoft. “Allowing sites and services that have deployed Arcot’s TransFort solution to accept .NET Passport-issued credentials enables Web sites to break down the barriers to e-commerce, making the shopping experience both secure and convenient for consumers.”
“Arcot is the solution provider enabling the Verified by Visa Issuer Service for our member banks,” said Jon Prideaux, executive vice president of Visa EU. “With the integration of Passport, the Arcot TransFort platform now offers increased functionality and choice for issuers and cardholders with another means of cardholder authentication for Verified by Visa.”
“The integration of .NET Passport with our TransFort solution will give consumers a simple, familiar and completely transparent way to secure their online purchases across Internet merchants,” said Ram Varadarajan, president and CEO of Arcot. “This will result in online purchasing experiences that are not only safe and fast, but also will help issuing banks eliminate online fraud and its associated liability from unauthorized card use.”
“As a leader in computer security and e-commerce, McAfee.com is always looking for new ways to make it easier for customers to get easy, secure access to our products and services,” said Doug Cavit, chief information officer at McAfee. “As a customer of the .NET Passport authentification service and the Arcot TransFort solution, we think the integration of Passport and TransFort will break down barriers for customers, making it easier to access and purchase McAfee products and services conveniently and securely.”
About Arcot TransFort
Arcot TransFort strongly authenticates and digitally signs transactions in real time, providing for the secure nonrepudiation of online payments. Scalable to hundreds of millions of transactions, Arcot TransFort allows companies to grow the volume and value of their online business and provide their customers with an added level of confidence and security in the relationship. In addition to being the first solution recognized by the Visa Compliance Testing Facility as fully complaint with the 3-D Secure protocol, Arcot TransFort supports the MasterCard SPA protocol and has developed the industry’s leading dual-protocol solution for consumer payment authentication.
About Arcot
Arcot Systems Inc. is the leading provider of authentication and access control solutions for securing e-business in Internet-scale, transactional and wireless environments. Only Arcot provides cost-effective, scalable software solutions based on the ArcotID Software Smart Card for strongly authenticating users and transactions for payment systems, Web-based e-mail, Web portals and virtual private networks. Arcot solutions meet the business need for strong transactional security while providing the customer a user-friendly experience with anytime, anywhere convenience. Leaders in financial services, healthcare and e-commerce are using Arcot solutions to protect their customers’ privacy and reduce fraud. More information can be found at http://www.arcot.com/.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software — any time, any place and on any device.
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