A Look at the Security of Your eCommerce Website
Your eMerchantClub eCommerce website is a sophisticated software platform that has been improved on for the last several years. As such, it is important to recognize that your website has various multi-leveled security measures that have been built in steadily over a long period of time. These measures have constantly been adapted to encompass the latest technologies and to deal with the latest security issues that Internet users are faced with today. This security includes protections developed to elevate your security toward PCI compliance standards, as well as additional safeguards. PCI compliance The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard is an international security standard assembled by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council. PCI compliance has come to be known as an industry standard stamp of approval for e-commerce websites. PCI compliance focuses on aspects that ensure that both you and your shoppers enjoy a secure environment while browsing and utilizing the features on your site. PCI security standards are constantly changing. This is because hackers are always coming up with clever new ways to find and exploit holes in the security of sensitive information stored on the Internet. eMerchantClub pays close attention to these data security standards that are set by the PCI Security Standards Council, whose vigilance often allows them to identify issues before they ever become a problem. If you have the latest eCommerce release from eMerchantClub, the Version 10.2, then you can be confident that your security is up to date and will stand strong against hackers who may attempt to find a hole in your site’s security. Most of the security measures that have been added to your website to keep in line with PCI standards are not visibly apparent. There are no shiny new graphics or new user interfaces to bring your attention to these enhancements. Instead, these measures are implemented on a code level to the very foundation architecture of your site. Code has been continually made more effective and has been adapted to deal with new potential threats. Your site’s data has been made more secure through measures that deal with the way that data is retrieved and displayed. Some measures have made certain data invisible to prowling eyes and other measures have changed the routes through which data is sent and received by your site over the Internet. 128-bit SSL encryption Your site also utilizes extremely secure data encryption technology. This 128-bit SSL encryption is the same type of encryption that is widely used by banks. This security is in place on pages of your site where sensitive data is input, sent or displayed. In a nutshell, here is how SSL encryption works: SSL uses encryption to pass a key between your site and the server. Each and every transaction performed on your site uses a different and unique security key. This means that even if this encrypted key was discovered, that key would be null and void as soon as that transaction was ended and would no longer give any access to the server. The possibility that some invading presence would somehow intercept an encrypted key in the first place is extremely unlikely and would be tremendously difficult. However, even if it was done, then they would only have until the end of the transaction to unlock or decrypt the encrypted key. Some websites that deal with sensitive transactions still use encryption that is as little as 40-bit, which is much less secure than 128-bit. These days, 40-bit encryption is generally regarded as unsecure because of the fact that it has been demonstrated that a 40-bit encrypted key can be cracked in a little more than a week using a network of fast, dedicated computers. But, in reality, since the encrypted key is only valid for the length of a minutes-long transaction, even this “less secure” encryption is more than enough for the needs of most e-commerce websites. As previously mentioned, your site uses the stronghold-type security of 128-bit encryption. In other words, the key could be any of a possible 2 to the 128th power combinations. The “less secure” 40-bit encryption offers a secret key that can be one of a possible 2 to the 40th combinations. For the “less secure” 40-bit encryption that number of possible combinations equals 1,099,511,627,776 - which is more than the number of all humans alive or ever alive! That is why it took more than a week for a network of dedicated computers to crack this key the first time it was done. So, it is difficult to comprehend how many possible keys your 128-bit SSL encryption offers, but it is one of a staggering 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,770,000,000 approximate possible combinations. A hacker would need to try each possibility until they came across the correct key, and they only have minutes to do so. To go through all of these combinations, some have speculated, it would take longer than the known universe is thought to have existed! In other words, your transactions are very secured, to say the least. 
Looking Forward… The next eMerchantClub eCommerce release, the Version 10.3, will come equipped with even further security measures. One such feature that you will most likely notice immediately is the User Name Change feature. At some point after your site is updated to Version 10.3, which is anticipated to occur within the next two to three weeks, you will be prompted to change your user name the first time you log in to your Site Manager. This feature is designed to maintain the integrity of your site’s security. You currently have the ability to change your password on the Support > Change Password page, and the Version 10.3 offers the added required safeguard of changing your user name. This change is vital for the strengthening of your security and while it is not optional, it is an opportunity that affords you with the ability to essentially “change the locks” on an important asset to your business, your website. If your site is not updated to Version 10.2 with all of the latest security features, give us a call at (888) 806-2081 for information on getting this latest version. As always, if you have any questions please contact Technical Support via e-mail at techsupport@emerchantclub.com by going to Live Chat Technical Support at http://www.emerchantclub.com/support.html or by calling (877) 384-4691.
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