Financial service firms in particular have been using more powerful intrusion-detection techniques to defend their networks against hackers and other criminal online threats.

These "field-tested" methods against "identity theft" are successfully protecting these outstanding firms from the continued gaping holes being found in Windows system software (Sobig-F, for example).

This new white paper from VeriSign details some of the new techniques, including:

• Stronger methods to authenticate who is coming into your network
• More effective transaction screening methods that alert you in real time to potential criminal patterns of fraud
• Real-time mechanisms that flag suspicious online e-commerce transactions as they are occurring
• Protective alerts that thwart hackers from taking control of your e-commerce payment structure
• AND MORE