Securing a URL using a username-password

I am working on creating a toolbar application that will invoke a URL on the server and increase a User's points(as an incentive to use the toolbar). Right now the URL is a GET(I can and will change it to POST).

The issue is, I need to ma开发者_开发百科ke sure that someone cannot, using any sort of a hack, increase the points. The URL is ofcourse a publicly accessible URL.

Will Basic HTTP Authentication make sense in this case? If yes, wont I need to store username-password with the toolbar, which again can be easily hacked?

-thanks

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if I'm not mistaking Basic HTTP Authentication send the password in clear text over the network I suggest you to use Digest HTTP Authentication + TLS/SSL