One of the main worries - and rightly so - of any shopper using an online shop is: "Is it safe to send my card details across the internet?". Our e-payment network uses digital signatures and strong encryption to ensure that all sensitive information is protected throughout the payment process.

DIGITAL SIGNATURES

A digital signature is a method of positively identifying the sender of a message sent in digital form. Just like a signature on a written document, it proves that the message is authentic (but unlike a written signature, it cannot be forged by someone else). A valid digital signature also confirms that the message has not been altered in any way on its journey between the sender and receiver.

We use digital signatures throughout the system to ensure that any transaction arriving at a payment gateway has come from a merchant that we can identify, and that any information passed back to the merchant is from a SECURETRADING payment gateway. Digital signatures are also used for communications within our payment system. In the event that a merchant's digital signature becomes a security risk (for example, if their server is stolen), the appropriate signature will be immediately revoked and will no longer function within our system.

SECURETRADING is the approved Certification Authority (root CA) for these signatures.

ENCRYPTION

Encryption is vital when sensitive information is sent across a publicly-accessible network like the internet. Many web browsers, including Internet Explorer and Netscape, can use SSL encryption, which encrypts data with a key of up to 128-bits. This level of encryption is used by the SECURETRADING secure servers which host the payment pages for users of our STability service, and it greatly enhances the integrity of the payment process.

All of the servers and gateways that make up the SECURETRADING payment network, and all e-commerce systems using our STability Server service, communicate using an even higher level of encryption: namely, 2048-bit RSA encryption with variable 168-bit session keys. This is many billions of times more secure than standard web browser security, and is also much higher than all currently proposed new standards for encryption in e-commerce.