Ordering things from the internet

[Sharon]

What happened to the little lock that used to appear on
the task bar when you were on a secure site? Mine does
not show up now and I wonder if it is safe to order off
the internet now?

 

[Kevin]

If you are on a secure site, accessed by a username and password, like Best
Buy for instance, you should see the lock and in the address bar the https
indicating a secure server. If you do not see both, do not give any
information, you may be on a spoofed site. Check out several sites to see
if the problem is specific to one site or is broader in scope.

 

[DZ]

Also, if you go to File/Properties in Internet Explorer,
you will see a line that is labeled "connection." IF the
connection is not encrypted, then you do not have an
active SSL session and therefore the data stream is
exposed. If the connection line has something like "TLS
1.0, RC4 with 128 bit encryption (High); RSA with 1024
bit exchange", and you have the padlock in the browser,
then the data stream will be encrypted.

Dan Zimmerman, SSCP, MCP

 

[BD Dukes]

I believe if the http: is https: that indicates a secure
connection.

 

[Guest]

You may just have the status bar hidden. You can restore it by clicking
View in IE and selecting Status Bar.

Hope this helps!

Jeff