Secure Web transactions are increasingly commonplace. If anyone has ever ordered a book, a CD, or any other product or service over the Web (say, through Amazon.com), he or she likely utilized a secure transaction system. The e-commerce company Amazon.com processes thousands of secure e-transactions daily. As do most secure e-commerce Websites, Amazon.com encrypts confidential information with the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology as it is transmitted between the consumerÂ’s Web browser and the online companyÂ’s Web server.

No computer system can be assumed to be completely secure. Therefore, one needs to understand that security in an e-commerce sense is best defined in terms of acceptable risk—meaning that the consumer must feel comfortable that his or her personal information will be relatively safe from inappropriate use after it is sent online as part of the transaction. Moreover, acceptable risk means that the company operating the server must be confident that it can defy internal and external exploits.

Because of concerns regarding e-commerce secure transactions, on February 9, 2005, XRamp Technologies announced that it is now issuing 256-bit digital SSL technology certificates that function with browsers and servers capable of the 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). Besides working with the frequently used Mozilla Firefox Web browser, the SSL technology certificates are backward compatible—able to provide encryption for software not meeting this standard.

See Also: Advanced Encryption Standard (AES); Exploit; Risk; Secure Sockets Layer (SSL); Security.