"It is an unsettling message," says Aliant spokesperson Joe Mosher. But he also says that the company's online credit card payment system is "no less secure" as a result.
The problem is this: when customers go to Aliant's web site to pay for their business services, an alert pops up warning that the security certificate used to authenticate the identity of the web site doesn't match the web site address - and that this could mean credit card information entered on the web page could be hijacked.
According to Mosher, Aliant uses a third-party credit card processing system - Callvision - for bill payments. So the security certificate used to authenticate the processing system was issued to Callvision, a California subsidiary of US Internet giant and sometimes bad boy Network Solutions.
"Our server doesn't have the same digital certificate," says Mosher. "But trust me. We want our money."
He says Aliant is investigating a fix to the disturbing message that has led some customers to refuse to enter their credit card information and have gone back to paying their bills the old fashioned way.
Cheers, George
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