I remember back in the day when my friend and I created a secret code so we could pass notes to each other in school that no one would be able to decipher. The point of making a code or “encryption” is to ensure that the message you are sending is not read by unwanted eyes. That is why encryption – computer encryption specifically – has long been used extensively by the government to protect its secrets, and more recently by organizations and individuals. Both the government and now organizations and individuals use encryption to protect and prevent confidential information from being revealed to unauthorized sources. Businesses utilize encryption to guarantee that they can exchange data with their vendors, business partners, and branch officers safely and securely.

Computer encryption is based on the science of cryptography, which is the study of message secrecy. Encryption use is ubiquitous in today’s business world. For example, encryption helps ensure that software is copy-protected against piracy and unauthorized use. Additionally, individuals and businesses utilize encryption when they are disclosing personal information or sending e-mails online. I’m sure we have all experienced that initial hesitation when asked for our credit card information on the Internet. How do we know that someone won’t steal our numbers and commit fraud under our names?

You can rest assured. Encryption scrambles the information regarding your account into a special mathematical code during transfer. When this happens, you will see an icon in your browser such as a key or a lock . This means you are in an encrypted session and the information you are sending is secure. On the other hand, when a session is unsafe and not encrypted, there will usually be a broken key or an opened lock to indicate that.

There are two types of encryption divided by degree of capability:

• 40-bit encryption – also known as domestic-grade encryption – means that there are 240 (more than 1,000,000,000,000) possible keys for the lock holding your information.
• 128-bit encryption – or international-grade encryption – is much more powerful than 40-bit because there are 2128 possible keys. That’s 288 (more than 300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) times as many combinations of keys than there are for the 40-bit encryption. So it takes a computer substantially more processing power to find the correct key with 128-bit than with 40-bit.

To keep your business safe, you will definitely want to look in purchasing encryption services to protect your most sensitive data.