A New Framework for Credit Card Transactions Involving Mutual Authentication between Cardholder and Merchant

Electronic Commerce (e-Commerce) and ease in the onsite transactions have led to the exponential growth in the acceptance of credit cards among consumers of all the sections. But despite their remarkable advantages, consumers are still reluctant in their use, especially for online transactions and reason being the increasing credit card fraud rate. A number of security models have been proposed and deployed for secure online transactions but the sharing of sensitive credit card data over the Internet has made online transactions vulnerable to threats. In this paper, we discuss and analyze the current developments in online authentication procedures including biometrics, one-time-password systems and use of mobile device and Public Switched Telephone Network for cardholder authentication. Then we propose a complete new framework for both onsite and online (Internet shopping) credit card transactions. This framework is more secure, robust, enhances user privacy and does not involve the deployment of special hardware systems at the customer's site.