SkyPoint
Communications is a full service Internet Service Provider.
Understanding Secure Commerce
What
Are Secure Commerce Transactions?
More and more data is
being exchanged over the Internet every day. Some of that data is financially
sensitive (credit card numbers, bank transactions, stock purchase and sell
orders, etc.) or may be private (trade secrets, confidential company information,
medical records, etc.). Because of the ease of intercepting data on the Internet,
many individuals are understandably cautious about releasing any such information
in on-line transactions or data exchange.
Secure transactions can
be used whenever sensitive information is exchanged over the Web. The most
common type is credit card orders of merchandise being sold on Web sites.
Users can identify when information is being entered in a secure environment
on most browsers; the key at the bottom of the browser, which is usually seen
with a break in the center, looks like it is all a single piece. For this
type of transaction, some banks and credit agencies now offer special accounts
for merchants taking Internet credit card orders.
Secure commerce capability
allows users to transmit such sensitive data over the Internet with minimal
worry. The entire transmission is encoded using "trap-door" cryptography algorithms
that can not be simply run in reverse to extract data. Only the holder of
the private decryption "key" can read the data. Even if the transmission is
intercepted, it is useless without the key. While no encryption scheme is
theoretically unbreakable, the likelihood of successful decryption is negligible
even with the help of sophisticated computers.
