Below is the content of some technical updates you may have been emailed from Authorize.net on or around Feb. 17, 2016.
Here is what our head programmer, says about the updates, “After reading the information, I can see that none of it applies to either Wintix or Webtix. One thing that will be a minor issue is their move to Akamai. This is supposed to speed up the transmission of data and authorizations. It probably will speed things up, but not enough for anyone to notice.
Having Authorization IDs that are not in sequential order will not bother anyone. We connect with our own field, which is the sale number. That gets joined with the Authorize.net data in the credit card log report. The credit card log report also includes other data from Authorize.net. That way, when there is a problem we can get answers from Authorize.net.”
Dear Authorize.Net Merchant:
Over the next few months, we are making several updates to our systems that you need to be aware of. They are all technical in nature and may require the assistance of your web developer or shopping cart/payment solution provider.
Please read this email carefully, and if you need to find a web developer to help you, please check out our Certified Developer Directory at www.authorize.net/cdd.
Akamai SureRoute Reminder
As we get further into 2016, we want to remind you of our previously announced Akamai SureRoute implementation plan and timelines. Using Akamai’s technology will help safeguard against interruptions caused by issues beyond our direct control, such as Internet congestion, fiber cable cuts and other similar issues.
If you have not already, please review the announcement and the Akamai FAQs to determine what action you should take for your particular solution. If your solution uses a firewall, please pay particular attention to this section of the FAQs to make sure you avoid any disruptions to your transaction processing.
Transaction and Batch ID Reminder
In the coming months, due to system updates, it will be possible to receive Authorize.Net IDs (Transaction ID, Batch ID, etc.) that are not in sequential order.
For example, currently, if you receive a Transaction ID of “1000,” you could expect that the next Transaction ID would not be less than 1000. However, after the updates, it will be possible to receive a Transaction ID less than the one previously received.
If your system has any functionality that expects Authorize.Net-generated IDs to be sequential, please update it immediately so that you will not see any disruptions.
Additionally, please make sure that your solution does not restrict any Authorize.Net ID field to 10 characters. If you are required to define a character limit when storing any of our IDs, the limit should be no less than 20 characters.
RC4 Cipher Disablement
In an effort to ensure that all of your server-to-server communications with the Authorize.Net platform (both transactional and otherwise) maintain the highest levels of security, we will be disabling the RC4 cipher suite during the first half of 2016. A follow-up notification will be sent out once specific dates for the disablement are ready for the sandbox and production environments.
For now, if you have a solution that relies on RC4 to communicate with our servers, please update it to a current, high-security cipher as soon as possible. Please review our API best practices blog post for more information.
TLS Remediation for PCI DSS Compliance
As you may already be aware, new PCI DSS requirements state that all payment systems must disable TLS 1.0 by 2018. Though we are still finalizing our plans for remediating TLS 1.0 in both sandbox and production, we will be disabling TLS 1.0 in sandbox and production in early 2017. This is to ensure that we are compliant ahead of the PCI date.
In addition, we are discussing the possibility of disabling TLS 1.1 at the same time, because while it is not expressly forbidden, there are enough concerns surrounding it. TLS 1.2 is currently the strongest available protocol, and we strongly urge all merchants and developer partners to use it for their API integrations.
For more information, including updates to the dates we anticipate disabling TLS in each environment, please refer to our previous blog post.
Sincerely,
Authorize.Net