VeriSign's Green Bar Signals Safe Online Banking With HSBC

HSBC, the UK's largest banking and financial services organization, is implementing new security technology to help keep its online banking customers safe from the clutches of identity thieves and e-criminals. HSBC plans to implement Extended Validation (EV) SSL from VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN), the trusted provider of Internet infrastructure services for the networked world.

Phishing has increased in the last few months according to APACS, with the latest stats showing that over 10,000 incidents were reported in Q1 2008 -- a 200 percent increase over the same period in 2007. EV SSL's green address bars aim to build trust and confidence among consumers by offering immediate and visible assurance that they are dealing with a legitimate banking site and not an impostor site created by identity thieves.

HSBC will deploy VeriSign® EV SSL Certificates to help protect its three million UK customers registered for online banking services. 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 (HSBC) as well as the security provider that issued the certificate, such as VeriSign.

"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 -- the reassuring green bar -- to our online banking customers, confirming that any personal information they supply on that page will go directly to HSBC and no one else. In the often unsettling landscape of today's Internet, VeriSign EV SSL protection helps us provide a safe haven for our customers."

"VeriSign is pleased that the world's largest banking and financial services organization is implementing VeriSign EV SSL protection," said Tim Callan, vice president of SSL product marketing at VeriSign. "VeriSign EV SSL Certificates are growing in popularity because they not only help secure online transactions, but they protect corporate brands and preserve the invaluable trust that companies spend years building with customers. For market leaders like HSBC, those are assets worth protecting."

As the most respected and trusted SSL authority on the Web, VeriSign is the EV SSL Certificate provider of choice for more than 3,000 Internet domains, representing greater than 75 percent of the entire EV SSL Certificate market worldwide. In fact, over 93 percent of the Fortune 500 -- and the world's 40 largest banks -- rely on some form of VeriSign SSL Certificate to meet their security needs.

VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN) is the trusted provider of Internet infrastructure services for the networked world. Billions of times each day, VeriSign helps companies and consumers all over the world engage in communications and commerce with confidence.

Source: Verisign