Encryption - How Sensitive Information Is Protected on the Internet :: Exploratory Essays Research Papers

Encryption - How Sensitive Information Is Protected on the Internet Have you ever visited a web site and seen something that you wanted to purchase? Were you apprehensive about making that purchase, because you were unsure of who would see your personal information? Well, for an e-business to be successful, the leaders of that business must take special security measures to protect their customer’s sensitive information. The most reliable method to protect sensitive information that is transmitted via the web, is encryption. Encryption is the coding and scrambling of messages to prevent any unauthorized access to data that is being transmitted. Applying a secret numerical code called an encryption key encrypts a message. This allows the message to be sent as a scrambled set of characters. If the message is to be unscrambled, it must be decrypted with a matching key. These keys consist of groups of letters, numbers, and symbols. If a website is secured by encryption, you will see a small lock on the lower right hand side of your screen on the status bar. There are two basic standards of encryption. They are, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and Secure Hypertext Transport Protocol (S-HTTP). Both of these allow the client and the server computers to manage encryption and decryption as they communicate with each other during a secure Internet session. Public key is a widely used type of encryption. However, there are several different types. This type of encryption uses two different keys. One key is private while the other key is public. First, a private and public key must be created. The private key, of course, is kept secret. The public key is kept in a directory. The sender sends a message with the receiver’s public key, and the receiver uses the private key to decrypt it. Another type of internet security device is called a digital signature. This is a digital code attached to a message that is electronically transmitted and used to identify the origins and contents of that message. The digital signature is then used by the receiver to verify that the message was not tampered with after being sent. A digital signature is similar to a real signature, in that it is a way to be sure that the person sending the message is indeed that person.