In this article, Olivier Picciotto discusses about mobile security and Convertigo with the Carrefour use case

Security is a major concern for organizations, especially IT departments.  With the rise of mobile technology and its prevalence in the workplace, IT teams are searching for a better way to enable mobile business intelligence, while maintaining corporate security.

Convertigo Customer, Carrefour, the world’s second largest retailer, had this very challenge.  Carrefour needed to rapidly develop and deploy an application to support the business need for mobile commerce. Carrefour evaluated several technologies and selected Convertigo due to the speed and flexibility of deployment as well as for its secure architecture and design.

Carrefour had security concerns around its e-commerce mobile application and was most concerned with the potential for lost or mishandled customer payment information.  Imagine a customer making an online purchase only to find their banking information exposed to fraudulent use - Carrefour chose Convertigo to alleviate the risk of this happening.  Convertigo handled security for Carrefour in three main ways:

1. Authenticating users:  Convertigo handles user authentication by passing credentials to the application containing the source data.  This can be supported though many common single sign-on methods. For the Carrefour application, user credentials are never stored.  The mobile device has no knowledge or mechanism to cache user information, therefore protecting user security.
2. Data Encryption through transfer:  Convertigo uses standard advanced encryption protocols such as SSLv3, HTTPS, Private Keys and certificates.  This ensures that data transferred over the air, credentials for example, is encrypted.  Carrefour leveraged HTTPS on SSLv3 to secure all data exchanges
3. Encryption of device data: Convertigo also supports device data encryption which protects cached or stored data should the mobile device be lost or stolen.  Carrefour was not concerned with the shopping cart being left unencrypted so this feature was not enabled for the Carrefour mobile commerce application.

With Convertigo, Carrefour is able to recognize mobile specific revenue.   This is driving a competitive advantage and Carrefour is already benefiting from increased market visibility.  The combination of security features and flexible rapid delivery make the Convertigo solution the best fit for Carrefour and their customers.