Gone are the days when people feared inputting their credit card information online. Major advances in technology have heralded this advancement and, in some ways, e-commerce transactions have become safer than in-person ones. Here are the advances that have paved the way for today’s secure online payment environment.
1. HTTPS
Created in 1994 by Netscape, Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure or HTTPS secures the communication between the buyer and the seller when credit card and other sensitive information is transferred. As of August 2021, 74.6% of all websites use HTTPS and 91% of the top 1000 sites. Google Chrome began marking non-HTTPS sites as “Not Secure” in July of 2018.
2. Tokenization
Tokenization converts sensitive information like credit card numbers into a non-sensitive string of numbers known as a token. Tokenization was introduced to the credit card industry in 2005 and has become the standard for encrypting credit card data.
3. Artificial Intelligence
The major card brands now implement AI to determine, in real time, if a transaction matches the buying habits of the customer. If the transaction does not meet these criteria, it becomes flagged and requires verification from the customer to complete the transaction. This failsafe has proven valuable in preventing fraud when credit card numbers are compromised.
4. Biometrics and Autofill
Google and Apple have both made improvements to their browsers in both biometric and autofill features used to save sensitive information securely. By securing credit card information with autofill backed by biometrics, customers do not need to re-enter information every time a transaction is conducted. Biometrics adds to this feature by only allowing the card holder to initiate the transaction.
