Eli5 how do online transactions work and is my credit card information that is stored on a online website safe or secure from hackers.
In: 3
It varies by site, but by and large no… Some of the time yes, but your credit card info is only as safe as the least secure place you’ve used it… This is why sites like PayPal exist, to manage payment without exposing your details to an additional untrusted party.
Many sites will use a payment vendor to avoid having to even attempt to secure your financial information, so they never see it and someone like square or Google who’s whole job in that case is handling financial information can focus on that and usually does a much better job (though there’s still room for the seller to mess it up most of the time).
Usually cc info and such is expected to be stored encrypted (but a surprising number of businesses don’t), so no one just looking through the database can see anything useful, but they do need to be able to decrypt it, and they do eventually need to send it to either a payment vendor or the credit card company, and that’s another potential target for hackers
It varies by site, but by and large no… Some of the time yes, but your credit card info is only as safe as the least secure place you’ve used it… This is why sites like PayPal exist, to manage payment without exposing your details to an additional untrusted party.
Many sites will use a payment vendor to avoid having to even attempt to secure your financial information, so they never see it and someone like square or Google who’s whole job in that case is handling financial information can focus on that and usually does a much better job (though there’s still room for the seller to mess it up most of the time).
Usually cc info and such is expected to be stored encrypted (but a surprising number of businesses don’t), so no one just looking through the database can see anything useful, but they do need to be able to decrypt it, and they do eventually need to send it to either a payment vendor or the credit card company, and that’s another potential target for hackers
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