Visa USA has qualified nCipher's Secure Execution Engine and nShield hardware security modules for use within its smart access chip card conversion programme.
Qualification testing was performed by access control company Securify and Visa USA. With SEE technology the security-sensitive components of the smart Visa Access system are protected within nCipher's tamper-resistant hardware security module, says the company, thereby enabling member banks to implement secure access to their applications.
The nCipher software resides at the bank's access server and provides protection for the sensitive code that executes the symmetric key validation protocol. In effect, says nCipehr, a 'trusted validation agent' has been created that implements the sensitive elements of Visa's validation protocol at the member bank's facility.
The solution is based on Cambridge-based nCipher's new CodeSafe developer toolkit for securing e-business applications in Java.
"With CodeSafe, nCipher provides all the development tools necessary to lock the sensitive application code and keys in the secure environment of nCipher's nShield hardware security module, delivering true end-to-end security for e-business applications," explains Richard Moulds, vice president of marketing, nCipher.