METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR A SERVICE PROVIDER TO PROVIDE SECURE SERVICES TO A USER

A method and apparatus for establishing security credentials for a user to access and subsequently use in secure on-line transactions begins when a service provider generates a registration secret for a user in response to a registration request. The registration request identifies user information of a particular user. Before a registration request can be provided to the service provider, the user must establish a relationship with the service provider. Having generated the registration secret, the service provider stores a user identifying secret, which includes the initialization data, the user information, the registration secret, and/or a security name in a mapping repository. The service provider provides the registration secret to the user in a trustworthy manner. Sometime thereafter, the user provides an on-line initialization request for the initialization data, where the initialization request is encoded based on at least a part of the user identifying secret. Upon receiving the request, the service provider decodes the request and subsequently provides the initialization data to the user. The user then utilizes the initialization data to obtain security credentials. Once the user has obtained the security credentials, it utilizes them for on-line transactions with the service provider.