(Below is the video showing you just how safe and easy it is to shop on our online store with your Smartphone. But we highly recommend that you read this helpful article about shopping online before viewing the video).
Every year we see an increase of people shopping online, especially during the holiday season. Smartphones & tablets are replacing the desktop and laptop for consuming media, along with making online purchases. But whether you feel comfortable shopping online or you feel as if making purchases through the internet is not safe, there are 4 things you should know and be made aware of before your next online transaction.
Do you know what HTTP or, what SSL stands for? Do you know what a Payment Processor is? How about the term, PCI Compliant?
These are 4 things that many people don’t really know of, much less understand and how it applies to them. But in fact, HTTPS, SSL, Payment Processor, and PCI Compliance are necessary and you encounter them on many websites that you visit even if they do not offer any products or services.
I must mention something that is often overlooked before I familiarize you with those four things and that is, regardless of where you make a purchase be it a retail store or online, the data gets processed the same way even if ‘cash’ is your preferred form of payment.
For example:
Cash will often times end up in the bank at some point and when it does, it gets processed and recorded as an electronic transaction and becomes data.
Swiping your credit/debit card at the terminal of your local retailer or entering your billing information on a website, the transaction gets processed and recorded electronically and the ‘data’ gets transferred from one server to another and ends up into the appropriate bank account.
Now then…let me familiarize you with those four things that you will come across. I’ll start with the last one first, PCI Compliant.
PCI stands for Payment Card Industry and was created in 2006 by these five major credit card issuers, American Express, Discover Financial Services, JCB International, MasterCard Worldwide, and Visa Inc. These five are referred to as, the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council, or PCI SSC. They have created a standard by which financial institutions, merchants, retailers, and payment processors have to abide by, known as the PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).
When you see the term PCI Compliant usually on a website, then you know that the company or organization that stores financial data or processes payments from any one of the five members of the PCI SCC, have to adhere to certain security standards.
If you encounter a website that stores your financial information and lets you access this information likely by a ‘sign up’ or ‘login’ form, then make sure to find out if they are PCI Compliant. If you do not need to sign in or login, then the responsibility to be PCI Compliant falls to the Payment Processor.
Are you familiar with Authorize.Net, 2CO, or perhaps PayPal? They are known as Payment Processors which handle the payments and purchases for retail stores, via telephone, and most commonly the online merchant. They also serve as the ‘payment gateway’, which essentially allows your payment or purchase to be processed at a terminal. In a retail store, the terminal is located at the register. But online, the terminal is located on the checkout page of a website.
For the online checkout process to happen securely, the billing information that you are entering in the form needs to be encrypted. And the security protocol that encrypts the data is called, SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). Although the current iteration of the SSL security protocol is called TLS (Transport Layer Security) it’s still referred to as SSL usually like this; SSL 3.0 (SSL and the latest version number).
Data that needs to be encrypted can be anything, not just financial information. On a website that has this protocol in place to encrypt data, you will see the SSL certificate or badge, prominently displayed somewhere on every page (usually on the side or bottom).
SSL cannot function on its own though. It needs to work with another security protocol that you will see displayed in any web browser and it is, HTTPS.
HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) is a security protocol that transfers data across the internet and works in conjunction with the encryption protocol, SSL. You cannot have one without the other.
Shopping online is no different than shopping at a retail store. A retail store will have the products showcased, a staff on hand to assist you, and a secure terminal for you to make the purchase which is handled by a payment processor.
For your online shopping experience to be just as seamless and pleasant, proactively be aware of these four things. On the checkout page, look for HTTPS in your web browser. On the bottom perhaps even the sidebar of the website, the SSL certificate or badge. However, you must ‘click’ on the SSL certificate/badge to make sure it is valid. A reputable Payment Processor to handle the transaction. And if you are asked to Sign in or Login to make a payment, purchase a product or to see your financial data, be sure to find out if they are PCI Compliant.
Article was written by our Team Member Greg M.
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