Techniques for secure electronic transactions

As the use of Internet becomes a day to day activity of people, and purchases over the Internet is becoming an everyday necessity, secure methods of paying for such purchases have become very important. The need to provide the security of confidential information such as credit card numbers means that secure channels of communication are required. Cryptography plays a vital role in this. This paper looks at some of such cryptographic techniques used and some methods that are currently being used for monetary transactions.