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In almost all casses where credit card theft ocurs, perpetrators use a program called a "packet sniffer" to look at data that's being transferred between a web server and a client browser. On a non-secure site, all transactions are sent in "packets" of human readable text. Persons using a packet sniffer can intercept the data being sent, save it to their computer, and do with it what they will. This practice, for the most part, is of little consequence for standard html pages and such, but definitely pose obvious concerns when you send your credit card number over the internet.
What's a packet? TCP/IP: the protocol used by
the Internet to send and receive information transmits data in "packets". Think of a packet as a pocket full of change. Even though it adds up to a dollar when put together, in your hand it is different sizes, colors, and values. Packets work the same way. A single web page or E-mail may take 1000s of packets to get from the server to you, where your browser puts them all together as the appropriate document.
When you are at a secured location, any information
sent to your browser from the server, and any information you send back (by pressing a "Submit" button) is protected by the SSL Layer that's been built on our Host Server. The SSL Layer creates an encrypted version of the data being sent between the client (you) and the server (us). The data is encrypted in "non- human-readable" format, so anyone who tries to "sniff the packet" will simply get 1000s of unintelligible characters. In addition, the encryption is different for each transaction. That is, each packet is separately encrypted, of varying size and each with it's own de-encrypt routine. Even if someone did obtain the encrypted transaction, it will be impossible for him/her to de-encrypt and put together the many thousands of individual packets that make up the entire transaction.
Are you safe? Absolutely.
Once the order information has been encrypted by the customer's browser and sent to our site hosted on an Orion Secure Commerce server, that information is posted to a protected folder. This folder is unavailable via the web or anonymous FTP, only our representatives have access to this information. Dethlef's Flowers then retrieves the information from the server through a Secure Socket Layer connection to the order files. The order information is deleted at the time when the order has been retrieved. In other words, your personal information is never exposed to the internet in an unsecured form. Or, in the vernacular, both the front and back doors are locked.
What does this mean to our customers? First, security of your personal information is among our greatest concerns. You may place an order from our website or toll free number with confidence that your personal information always receives the greatest respect.
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