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How often do you hand your credit card to
a waiter in a restaurant or give out your account number over the
telephone when ordering products? Such actions probably pose a greater
security risk than charging items online at least from trusted Web
sites. Certificates
If you have doubts about providing your
credit card number or other personal information on a company's Web site,
check for the site's certificate. With Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0, on
the File menu, click Properties and then click Certificates. A Web site
certificate is an online document that certifies the site's identity so
you know your information is going where you intend it to go.
Weighing the risk
There is a chance that a thief could
intercept your credit card number as it travels from your computer to the
Web site's server, but it's a faint possibility. In fact, it's much more
difficult to carry out such a scheme online than it is in the real world
where your credit card number is printed on statements and receipts that
are mailed, filed, or thrown away. Some sites may work with your browser
to encrypt, or encode, your transaction information so that, if it's
intercepted, it can't be read.
Two levels of encryption
Servers and Web browsers use 40-bit or
128-bit encryption. With 40-bit encryption, there are many billions of
possible keys to unlock the code for each unique transmission, and only
one of them works. With 128-bit encryption, there are 300 billion trillion
times as many possible keys as with 40-bit encryption. |
