Can you give us some information about your company and its area of activity?

IHS Telekom, ICANN Accredited Domain Registrar which provides internet services since 1999, stands as the 93rd biggest and 51st fastest growing Domain registrar with more than 45.000 subscribers, more than 100.000 domains.

The Distributor of VeriSign in Turkey besides being a Service Provider, IHS Telekom provides rational and innovative infrastructure solutions to institutions. At the fair we will display VeriSign and other smart card, two-factor identification control, fraud detection and open key infrastructure solutions that we are distributor of.

What are the aspects that set you apart from your rivals active within the same sector? What are your customer’s reasons for preferring you?

Product development strategies of IHS Telekom have always been based on problems that are difficult to solve. This is why corporate products and solutions that we offer are most of the time unrivalled or difficult-to-compete with.

Are there any novelties that your company has achieved in Turkey or abroad?

IHS Telekom Deutsche Telekom is the first Turkish company to rank in the biggest 100 Registrar authorities ranking that includes such providers as Yahoo. We have innovative projects on open key structure governed in Turkey which continues in collaboration with VeriSign.

Can you inform us about forgeries made through internet? (numbers, damages it cost to economy etc)

Identity and credit card thefts attack through such techniques as Phishing and Pharming, which are done quite commonly in Turkey. These attacks cause severe damages to economy as well as creating a giant burden on judiciary system.

What are your particular software and applications in order to prevent fraud through the internet?

This problem is not a threat that can be solved within a single-layered structure. First of all identity control technologies must be split between both the user and the provider. At the first step, the provider which provides internet application such as online banking to its user has to guarantee its own identity. It is an incorrect approach to throw the identity control responsibility to the user party only. Thus, institutions first have to know whether or not the user has the right internet application by using SSSL certificates which use VeriSign EV and SGC technologies that we provide, in other words, which displays green address bar.

At the second step, it is necessary for the user to submit an apparatus that s/he has other than the pin that the user knows when signing in to the internet application, in other words, to carry out two-factor identity control. We are using VeriSign technology for this step. Many banks in Turkey are still using SMS for this step; we do not regard that much correct.

For projects that require stricter identity control we are using i.e. VeriSign Open Key infrastructure through which we can carry out the identity control of the user and the computer that the user is using separately. Identity control within this structure is realized certificate-based totally. Certificate-based identity control is used quite widely in Europe, USA and Japan.

These are the most basic security layers, we offer the VeriSign Fraud Detection System solution which monitors internet, call center, ATM, money transaction, exchange market operations of banks and makes real-time risk analysis in order to detect more sophisticated fraud techniques.

Where do you think Cardist stands in the sector? What do you think Cardist contributes to the sector?

It is an organization that brings together focused solution suggestions in the sector. I think it serves as a guide in establishing new security trends especially for Finance and Public sector.

What are your expectations from Cardist as an exhibition and a summit?

We will meet with an audience to whom we can display our solutions effectively. This means a lot to us. I also think that a big synergy will arise between us and other solution providers and those collaborations might be formed so as to solve certain problems.

How are you preparing for Cardist 2010? What sort of novelties of your company will we see at Cardist 2010?

We are organizing an event one week before Cardist, on May 4th, in Istanbul to which VeriSign and 300 invitees are planned to participate. So, I think we will be quite ready on the side of VeriSign. For the first time at Cardist this year we will also be displaying DZCard and Ireth solutions.

This year Krisztine Soos from Fraud Compatibility Support Department of Erste Bank will attend a session titled “Latest Trends in Fraud & Their Effects on PCI DSS”. Will you participate in the summit? Can we hear your thoughts about it?

I want to see within the framework of e-Trade standards which we are experienced at. I do not think that PCI DSS control and accreditations have contributed much to E-trading sector with respect to security and prevention of credit card fraud. These controls are no more than a mere formality for many institutions.

Institutions that have grown large enough to be subjected to PCI DSS controls come to have both taken certain precautions against and have gained certain amount of experience with respect to fraud. The main problem is the institutions that have not grown large enough to be subjected to PCI DSS controls, i.e. many small enterprises doing e-trade in Turkey constitute quite large amount of trading volume when combined together, yet these enterprises are not controlled.

Especially when we take into consideration that there is still no requirement concerning the use of 3D security, are these enterprises storing the credit cards of their users? Where, under what conditions and within what kind of security policy framework do they store them? Are they using SSL Certificate? These are obscure. With respect to that, especially banks that distribute Virtual POS should establish higher supervision standards. It is important that banks carry out the supervision not only when granting Virtual POS but also in the following years.

We are living in an age in which technology changes fast. What kind of contributions do you think Cardist will make to the sector in the future?

As long as innovations continue, Cardist will keep being an effective meeting point within the sector by bringing together producers and consumers in the following years as well.

This year a jury that is composed of top-level executives in finance sector will choose companies which are deemed worthy of Cardist Awards (Smartwards) from among exhibitors. What do you think about that?

Let the smartest win :)