You could be transferring millions of pounds via the web, or you could be buying a few packets of Post-it notes. You also want to know that you can trust the person at the other end of the 'submit' button. As ebusiness grows and the web plays an increasing role in mission-critical business operations, security and trust have to be a given for end users.
All business transactions require end user accountability.
Companies now need to find a way to do this in an ecommerce environment. The medium of ecommerce is the public internet, which means that a significant proportion of a company's mission-critical resources are available over unsecured, open networks. As a result, information exchanged over open networks is vulnerable to being intercepted and compromised. For companies to succeed on the web, it is imperative that they can identify themselves. As well as the question of trust, there's the issue of information 'assurance'.