Data Security

Protecting Transactions by Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)

To find out if your transaction is guarded by SSL, look for the picture of the unbroken key or closed lock in your browser window (both the Netscape Navigator/Communicator and Microsoft Internet Explorer browsers use SSL). Either indicator means SSL is hard at work. (If you don't see either one, or if you see a broken key or an open lock, that means your transaction does not have SSL protection).

The easy way to tell if SSL is guarding your transaction is to check the URL of the site you are visiting. The URL in the browser should change from "http" to "https" when processing secure transactions.

For example, let's say you go to amazon.com. When you enter your bank card and other data at the site, you can choose to use a secure server. If you select that, you'll notice that the URL will change from

http://www.amazon.com/
to
https://www.amazon.com/
The extra "s" is for "secure site."