Secure electronic transaction (SET) is an open specification for handling credit card transactions over a network, with emphasis on the Web and Internet. Secure transactions are critical for electronic commerce (e-commerce) on the Internet.
A SET purchase involves three parties of the cardholder, the merchant and the card issuer. The cardholder shares the order information with the merchant. The merchant shares payment information with the card issuer.
SET provides confidentiality of payment and order information. Payment information cannot be viewed by the merchant; only by the payment authorization of processing entities.
Merchants must automatically and safely collect and process payments from internet clients; therefore, a secure protocol is required to support the activities of the credit card companies.
SET is designed to secure credit card transactions by authenticating cardholders, merchants, and banks by preserving the confidentiality of payment data.
The SET specification is administered by an organization known as Secure Electronic Transaction LLC (SETCo) formed by Visa and MasterCard, and allows parties to a transaction to confirm each other identity. The initial specifications provided a complex security protocol using RSA for the public-key components.
SET is widely used because:
*Customer needs to install secure software wallet on PC that contains their private key
*The transaction verification process is slower than SSL
*Trader also needs to use special SET software on their server
Secure Electronic Transaction
