Online Credit Card Application – How Safe is It?

There have been many speculations about the safety of cardholders when they purchase items online using their cards. However, only a few are discussing about online credit card application. Safety for credit card usage online is one thing, credit card application online is an entirely different, and often untouched, thing.

How safe is it to provide your personal information once you apply online for credit card?

Though many people doubt it, the fact remains that secure e-commerce technology is much safer than mailing your application through postal service. Think about it, if you send your application by dropping it on a mailbox, how easy would it be for unscrupulous people to stick their hands into it and pull the envelop out from a home mailbox?

While this feat may be much harder to pull once you put your application on a public mailbox, it does not mean that it cannot be done. Additionally, once your application reaches the post office, postal workers will handle it. There may be surveillance cameras but dishonest people are always coming with the most creative ways to take advantage of other people. So, what are the security measures card companies use to handle all online credit card application?

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Technology

The information between your computer and the bank’s computer through the internet will be encrypted. Basically, the personal information you give once you apply online will be turned into a jumbled mess and the bank’s computer knows how to put it into order for human readers to understand. If a hacker tries to intercept your message, all he will get is the encrypted jumbled version.

But what Is encryption?

In a nutshell, encryption is a mathematical process that conceal information in 128-bits. It is similar to a secret language, only it is more sophisticated and much more complicated to crack. Typically, your data is encrypted when each character you enter is transformed into another character, in any one of 2 to the 128th power ways. To give you peace of mind, know that the code will take no less than 20,000 years to break using today’s computers.