Aliant credit card insecurity?
As Aliant's customer service levels dip deeper into the muck, the latest boondogle involves a foul-up with the security certificate associated with the company's online payment system for business customers.
Security certificates - or Certs, as the techies call them - provide validation that electronic commerce sites where you make online credit card payments are really who they claim to be.
Poor Aliant. First, the payment section of their convoluted collection of web services was dead this morning (Oct 26/06). When it came back up, it was using a flawed security cert: one that was assigned to Callvision.net, not to Aliant.
The notification about the problem suggests that an incorrect certificate could indicate an attempt to hijack traffic to the intended server...not the kind of thing you want to hear if you are about to send across your credit card information.
An email was sent earlier today (Oct 26/06) to Aliant's PR department. No response so far.
Update 1: Interview with Aliant's Joe Mosher scheduled for tomorrow (Oct 27/06) afternoon.
Cheers, George
