November 13, 2008 03:00 AM Eastern Time 

Commerzbank and Cronto Launch Secure Online Banking with photoTAN – World's First Deployment of Visual Transaction Signing Mobile Solution

CAMBRIDGE, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)--UK banking security specialist Cronto and Commerzbank AG, Germany’s second largest bank, announced the launch of the first deployment of the Cronto Visual Transaction Signing solution. A number of selected Commerzbank's customers will be able to secure their domestic transfers using the photoTAN mobile phone application.

“True to its principles of innovation and delivering future ideas today, with the photoTAN deployment, Commerzbank is leading the way for ensuring convenience and security of online banking customers” – says Igor Drokov, CEO of Cronto.

Increasingly, online banking is the target of sophisticated attacks that combine advanced technology and social engineering techniques. Purpose-built “Man-in-the-Browser” Trojans can remain undetected on customers’ computers, only activated when the customer is accessing his bank and manipulating customer’s payment instructions on the fly. Transaction authentication – a process of secure verification of customer instructions – is required to protect against this attack and could be achieved by using disconnected smartcard readers that require the customer to enter transaction details in to an independent device. This approach offers significant security advantages over the basic two-factor authentication and could be further strengthen by enhancing the transaction signing dialog between the bank and their customers. The challenge then is to avoid compromising customer’s experience by requiring to enter too many details.

The Cronto patent-pending transaction authentication solution uses the optical channel to establish a trusted channel of communication between the bank and the customer. With the photoTAN mobile application customers are only a picture away from secure verification of their banking instructions. The Cronto visual signing technology eliminates both the inconvenience of entering transaction details manually into separate authentication devices and the risk of the Trojan soliciting the customer to authorise a fraudulent transaction.

Kai Buchholz-Stepputtis, Head of Security Consulting and Research at Commerzbank AG, says: “Cronto’s innovative solution based on the unique Visual Cryptogram offers protection against the most sophisticated fraud techniques such as “Man-in-the-Browser” Trojans. It provides true transaction authentication via the optical channel achieved through the use of the Cronto Visual Cryptogram – a secure colour barcode.”

Unlike some other emerging uses of barcode technologies for online applications, Cronto is the only security specialist delivering the solution that designed from ground up to meet the requirements of banks and their online banking customers.

David Kreuzinger, responsible for the Retail Online-Banking Applications at Commerzbank AG, says: “Cronto's Visual Cryptogram could be displayed on the computer screen as well as printed on paper allowing us to use it across multiple distribution channels that suite best our banking applications. Using the single platform for visual transaction signing we can offer our customers a choice of simple convenient options: from the photoTAN application on their mobile phone today to dedicated optical readers tomorrow.”

Commerzbank and Cronto are open to share their visual signing deployment experience with other financial institutions, to promote safe and efficient online banking.

About Cronto Limited

Cronto Limited is a leading provider of secure visual transaction authentication solutions for online banking based upon visual signing technology born out of leading edge engineering research undertaken at the University of Cambridge.

Cronto’s mission is to facilitate the deployment of secure solutions that both meet the approval of the customers that use them, and can be deployed cost-effectively and with confidence by any banking organisation. For more information on the company’s visual signing technology, visit www.cronto.com.