Girl Scouts Going Green with VeriSign Internet Security Protections

Girl Scouts Going Green with VeriSign Internet Security Protections


Kicking Off Annual Drive to Donate Cookies to Military Troops Overseas, Hornets’ Nest Council Deploys VeriSign EV SSL to Display Trusted Green Browser Bar

Mountain View, CA – Thousands of Girl Scouts in North and South Carolina are going green this year – and not only for their vests, sashes and skorts. For Girl Scouts, Hornets’ Nest Council, the color green now signals a safe and secure online shopping experience thanks to advanced solutions from VeriSign, Inc., the leading provider of Internet infrastructure for the networked world.

Visitors to www.HNGirlScouts.org can be assured that they have reached a legitimate Girl Scout council page – and not a fake page created by e-criminals to steal credit card numbers and other sensitive information. That’s because the Hornets’ Nest Council is protecting its site with VeriSign Extended Validation (EV) Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificates.

When consumers using Internet Explorer 7 visit sites protected with VeriSign EV SSL, the address bar in their browser turns green. This provides an immediately recognizable signal that they’ve reached a Web site they can trust.

The extended online protections come as Hornets’ Nest Council, which serves more than 14,000 girls in parts of North and South Carolina, launches its “Cookies for the Troops” donation drive. The campaign began in 2002 and has enabled local residents to send more than 125,000 boxes of favorite Girl Scout cookies to military personnel serving overseas. In addition, Girl Scouts, their parents, and volunteers can purchase uniforms and accessories on the EV SSL-secured Web site.

“When Girl Scouts, their families, and their supporters visit our Web site, we want them to instantly recognize that they’re really dealing with the genuine article,” said Sally Daley, executive vice president at Girl Scouts, Hornets’ Nest Council. “By upgrading our protection measures to VeriSign EV SSL, we can offer that extra layer of security, signified by the green address bar. With VeriSign and the Girl Scouts, green means go.”

In addition to turning the address bar green, VeriSign EV SSL technology also enables high-security browsers to display other visual cues, including a lock icon next to the address, and a new field that contains the name of the organization that owns the site as well as the security provider that issued the certificate, such as VeriSign.

“For organizations like the Girl Scouts, trust is everything,” said Tim Callan, vice president of SSL product marketing at VeriSign. “Hornets’ Nest Council is showing remarkable vision by taking steps to help protect cookie donors, council members, parents and supporters from the threat of identity theft. With VeriSign EV SSL Certificates, they can communicate that protection every time someone visits their Web site. For supporters wanting to donate cookies to military troops, or for Girl Scouts purchasing new uniforms, that reassurance is valuable beyond measure.”

As the most respected and trusted SSL authority on the Web, VeriSign is the EV SSL Certificate provider of choice for more than 2,500 Internet domains, representing greater than 75 percent of the entire EV SSL Certificate market worldwide. In fact, over 93 percent of the Fortune 500 – and the world’s 40 largest banks – rely on some form of VeriSign SSL Certificate to meet their security needs. To learn more about VeriSign EV SSL, visit http://www.verisign.com/EV-SSL