As more consumers shop online, new risks are exposed. The anonymity of the internet poses the danger of unauthorised credit card purchases as there is no way of establishing if the shopper is in fact the authorised holder of the card used for payment.
3D Secure is a protocol that is designed to provide an additional security layer for online debit and credit card transactions. Visa offers this service under Verified by Visa and MasterCard’s service is called SecureCode. The introduction of 3-D Secure cardholder authentication means that you will now have the ability to prove that the cardholder used their card at the time of the transaction.
After submitting card details via the merchant’s website, the cardholder is redirected to their card issuer bank system for cardholder authentication. After the shopper entered a one-time pin/password the browser is redirected back to AllSecure, AllSecure will then process a 3-D Secure Authentication Request and receive an Authentication Response. This is the most secure online transaction type as by entering the provided password, cardholder proves that he/she is authorized to use this particular card, which eliminates the possibility of fraudulent use of stolen payment card data.