Would you tell someone you’re Social Security Number over the telephone if you knew there could be someone listening in? Hopefully, the answer is “no.” The same goes for browsing web pages. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is used whenever sensitive information is sent over the internet. The most common application is a 128-bit encryption standard which keeps confidential information from being read by outsiders by encrypting it on the sender’s end and decrypting it on the receiver’s end. With SSL, only the party designated to receive this information can read it.

I am about to send information over the internet, but how do I know when I am in a secure zone?

SSL uses a different communications port over the internet for which to send and receive data. But how do you know when you are in a secure zone? There are two ways to verify that you are sending and receiving information over a secure network:

1. Does the URL in the address bar have “http://” or https:// as the address prefix? It would be very easy to overlook this. The prefix “https” signifies that the page is using secure web pages.

The First Georgia Banking Company home page is not sending or receiving critical information, therefore it does not send information over a secure channel. In the address bar, the URL has the prefix “http” – the standard web communications protocol.

           

When using First Georgia Online Banking, notice the prefix in the URL. “https” is the prefix that signifies the use of secure web pages.

1. Do you see a small lock icon in the browser window? When using secure web pages, your browser window should display an icon which tells you that the page is being sent securely. Using Internet Explorer 7, this icon shows at the end of the address bar. In older versions of Internet Explorer, the icon will be at the bottom of the window, to the right of the status bar.

With Internet Explorer 7, the lock icon shows at the end of the address bar.

By double-clicking on this icon, you can view the certificate issued to your computer by the source of the web page – verifying once again that this web page is being sent securely. You can also check to make sure that the certificate is current and not expired.