Enhancing Security of Online Payments: A Conceptual Model for a Robust E-Payment Protocol for E-Commerce

The rapid growth of the Internet and its adoption for commercial transactions is indisputable. However, the core security protocols of the Internet today are susceptible to security lapses, especially when it comes to online payment systems which are indispensable to the growth of e-commerce across the globe. This has led to the development of various online payment protocols to ensure the security of online transactions such as Secure Electronic Transaction and The Secure Socket Layer. In designing online payment protocols, there is often a trade-off between security and convenience. More and more participants of online transactions suffer in one way or another from fraudsters. Ghana is gaining notoriety in online fraud, and there is therefore a need to protect the interest of the participants in the areas of authentication, confidentiality, replay attacks as well as flexibility if e-commerce is to thrive in developing countries. This paper looks at some online payment protocols and develops a conceptual model of a protocol which requires live authentication from the cardholder. This ensures security, convenience, cardholder authentication, and verification of merchant; it is easy to implement without complications and to compare with other existing online payment protocols. Participants that are considered in this work are the Cardholder, Issuer, Merchant, and Acquirer