Secure Ordering Questions

More on security from our shopping cart provider: Americart

CREDIT CARD SECURITY

Q: You say you offer "secure server" for credit card security. What does that mean and how does it work?

A: The goal of Americart security is to achieve one thing: To deliver credit card information from the customer to the merchant with the minimum possibility of exposure to prying eyes. Our primary tool for this is the utilization of secure data encryption. We encrypt the information between the customer and the cart, and then you retrieve credit card information the same way. Although orders are emailed to you in the clear, we strip off the last six digits of the credit card number, which you then retrieve through your secure browser, thus completing the secure path.

Q: What about security on your server?

A: All computers connected to the internet are theoretically vulnerable to break in, and ours is no exception. Assuming we do have a security breach, a hacker wouldn't find much on our system. We only store the last six digits of card numbers which wouldn't help them at all. The first digits are "piped" straight out to mail, and never written to disk at all.

Q: Some browsers don't support secure transactions. How do you handle this?

A: We offer all checkout forms in both secure and unsecure versions. The customer may choose as appropriate.