Building online trust is vital for enterprises in these days of increased online fraudulent activity. Undeterred by the daunting task, US-based internet infrastructure and services company Verisign is seeking to make the digital interactions of Indian enterprises secure and trustworthy with its solutions. The company also feels that the domain name registry for individuals could be a big area of growth for itself. ?We have not marketed it in a major way here. But given the low penetration of websites in India, we see huge potential here,? says Shekhar Kirani, country manager, Verisign India. Armed with a doctorate in computer science from the University of Minnesota, USA, Kirani, an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, has spent over 15 years in the technology industry. His movement to Verisign followed the acquisition of Lightsurf by the former in 2005. Having been with Verisign for the last four years, Kirani understands what could help push growth for it in India. In an interaction with Viveat Susan Pinto, Kirani talks about Verisign?s operations in India and the areas where maximum potential exists. Excerpts:
How big is India in global domain name registry?
We manage domain names globally. This is our core or fundamental area of operation. It is our first layer of solutions so to speak. All dotcom, dotnet and dotTV domain names are managed by Verisign across the world. This service is available in India too. You would be amazed that of the 180 million domain names that exist in the world, 1.2 million exist in India alone. Of these, 8,00,000 are dotcoms that have been purchased by Indians. We manage all of that.
Do you provide all your global services? Are any of them localised?
A lot, I would say. We have slowly but steadily evolved as a company. For the record, all of Verisign?s global services are available in India. We haven?t made that distinction between India and other markets. It doesn?t make sense because India shows enormous potential in terms of growth.
In the area of domain names for instance, we manage domain-name resolutions locally. That is, when you type the website URL, it is resolved locally to the IP. This helps in opening the website quickly. For something like this to work effectively, a lot of resilience and capacity has to be built into the system. We have been investing in the backend to ensure that the system works smoothly.
How do you ensure that digital interactions are trustworthy and secure?
We do this with the help of our digital security authentication services. The core, that is, secure sockets layer (SSL) certificates is something we began providing 10 years ago globally. It is basically a certificate for encrypting the content between the browser and the website. Typically websites that have this certificate have the Verisign check mark. The SSL certificate basically protects the path between the browser and the website channel.
The next part of the authentication exercise is the Verisign Identity Protection (VIP) service. Here, we issue second factor passwords or tokens in addition to the login name and password for those who have online accounts. This is like a second line of defence where a six-digit number has to be typed into the relevant field on the concerned website in addition to the username and password. Banks such as HSBC, for instance, have a service like this. Even ecommerce websites such as PayPal have a system in place such as this. It becomes very important for them to secure online payments. Typically, the bank or the ecommerce website could issue a physical token, which is a device made available to the user containing the six-digit number. The token can also be downloaded from the website or the number can be sent via text to the user?s mobile phone. The last area of operation is digital certificates that we issue for digital signing of documents. This could be any document, so issuing certificates that authenticate it becomes imperative.
Domain name registry could be a big area of growth?
We are looking at dotname domain names for individuals. It exists in India and abroad. But we have not marketed it in a major way. We now intend to do so in different markets, including India. Given the low penetration of websites in India, we see huge potential for it here. For every 100 internet users in India, there are less than two websites up and running. The ratio in the US is 100:22. In the UK it is 100:17. In China, it is 100: 8. There is clearly huge potential that exists here. We have already set up a sales office in Delhi to market domain names. The same goes for our VIP service. That is also an area that has huge potential in India. Globally, the VIP service has over two million users. This is one solution we are quite bullish about. SSL certification has been around for some time now. But we are moving to the next level with Extended Validation or (EV) SSL certificates. There is no way fraudsters can create mischief if the website has an (EV) SSL certificate.
The process is so rigorous. The browser basically turns green with an (EV) SSL certification. It is very difficult for fraudsters to replicate this, leave aside breaking into accounts and committing fraud.
How many customers have migrated to the (EV) SSL certification?
It is happening one at a time. Shoppers Stop has adopted this certification for its website. This has helped secure its ecommerce transactions. We are moving one at a time on this one. As awareness for this certification increases, it will result in greater adoption of it.