Click here to visit our Sponsor


What is a Secure Server?


A secure server allows commercial transactions and other communication to take place over the internet in a secure environment. This means that the data such as credit card numbers submitted over the internet are encrypted when they are transmitted. This stops any illegal access to such information. The encryption of the data will not allow other people to access information that you or your clients might submit to you over the internet.


Where is this helpful?

If you or your client are creating a store, that will involve transactions over the internet, the secure server is a very handy tool to have. It allows you to encrypt data such as credit card numbers so that no third party can access that information. In this manner you and your customers are guaranteed to have exclusive rights to personal information that is sometimes not the case in other environments on the internet.


What does it look like?

At the bottom of this text is a pasted image of how a secure link through the secure server looks like in a brower. Notice the lock on the screen. This is not usually present when accessing the information over the regular server, or it might appear unlocked. Aside from this the command line will show https://........ in a regular server access to a website it is called using http://..... ; these are just some of the differences that will let you know that you are logged onto the secure server and not a regular server.
Different browers show the secure link differently. However, in Netscape and Internet Explorer they might appear something like the following:



This icon appears when the server being used is secure in Netscape.



This icon appears when the server being used is not secure in Netscape.



 

This Icon appears at the bottom of the screen in Internet explorer when the server being used is secure. However when using Internet Explorer, if a regular nonsecure server is used no icon is displayed at the bottom of the screen, this is an indication that no security is on.
 


Back to the Index