Whether you’re an online retailer or a small business owner, offering a secure payment platform is critical to ensuring your customers have a positive experience.

A secure payment gateway reduces risk and helps you achieve lower processing costs. It also offers various reporting features, making tracking and managing transactions easier.

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)

Whether shopping online or sending an email, SSL technology protects your data from being intercepted by unauthorized parties. This is especially important regarding sensitive information, such as credit card and social security numbers.

Usually, information sent between a user’s browser and the web server is sent in plain text that can be read by anyone attempting to eavesdrop. This means an attacker can see a consumer’s credit card number, even if their purchasing website has encrypted the data.

However, SSL encrypts the data before it leaves the web server and decrypts it again once it arrives at its destination. This keeps a third party from reading and using the data.

An organization or individual creates public and private keys to encrypt data. The public key is distributed publicly and is used to encrypt data, while the private key is kept secret and only decrypts data that has been encrypted with the public key.

In addition to encrypting data, SSL digitally signs it, ensuring that no one can alter or change it before it is transmitted. This is called data integrity.

Initially, SSL was a proprietary protocol created by Netscape, but it eventually became an IETF standard in the 1990s. It has gone through multiple incarnations, each more secure than the last.

Once the CA has verified that the organization is legitimate, it will issue an SSL certificate to the organization and its domain/website. When a user visits that website and clicks on a link to a checkout page, the user will see the site’s address change from HTTP to HTTPS.

SSL is an essential feature to look for when choosing a payment platform. It keeps your customer’s data safe while it’s being transmitted and reassures them that their payment is secure.

Multi-factor authentication (MFA)

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is a security system that requires users to present more than just their username and password to log in to a site or application. This critical security feature prevents unauthorized access to sensitive data and systems.

MFA can be used to protect both consumer accounts and corporate networks. It can help to thwart threats such as identity theft, malware, and email fraud. It also helps build consumer trust and confidence, an essential element of any secure payment platform.

There are several types of MFA, but the most common is two-factor authentication (2FA). It typically involves presenting a password and another piece of evidence to verify the user’s identity.

The first factor is something the user knows, such as a password or personal identification number (PIN). This is called knowledge-based authentication. The user has the second factor, such as a smartphone or biometric token. The user is the third factor, such as a fingerprint or facial scan.

Some of the most secure MFA techniques include a hardware token, which generates codes using a tiny gadget. Authentication with this method is very difficult for hackers.

Adaptive MFA is also available, which uses knowledge, business rules or policies to determine who has legitimate access to a specific resource. For example, a bank may only allow users to access their account at certain times of the day or by detecting their location through Global Positioning System tracking.

This technique benefits businesses, preventing employees from logging in to the company’s system while traveling. It can also help to keep users from downloading suspicious or malicious software that can tamper with the system’s security.

MFA is vital to any security system and should be adopted whenever possible. Customers with much sensitive information need to safeguard. It is crucial to ensure that MFA is in place for every login.

Encryption

Encryption is a security technique that scrambles data so only authorized parties can decipher it. This process makes it impossible for cybercriminals to access confidential information such as credit cards or social security numbers.

It also allows businesses to regain the trust of their customers by ensuring that sensitive data is protected. For example, healthcare providers must comply with HIPAA regulations requiring patient data encryption. Retailers must also comply with laws such as the Fair Credit Practices Act that protect consumer data.

End-to-end encryption is a crucial security feature that can help businesses protect their customer’s sensitive data as it moves from one location to another. This includes consumer data as it is shared in communications between companies and private information transferred from one device to another.

There are two types of encryption: symmetric and asymmetric. Symmetric encryption uses a single key to encrypt data. This type of encryption is often used in applications where processing speed is a priority, such as credit card payment transactions.

Asymmetric encryption uses two different keys. Each key is created and shared by the sender and receiver of encrypted data. This type of encryption is more secure than symmetric but may slow down specific processes within a network, tool or transaction.

For this reason, businesses should choose encryption methods suitable for the specific types of data they need to protect. For instance, certain types of unstructured data prefer encryption, while structured data tends to be more suited for tokenization.

An excellent secure payment platform should use encryption to safeguard sensitive data in transit, at rest and when sent between servers. It should also provide a strong identity authentication layer to ensure that users are genuinely who they claim to be and that their data is not being tampered with.

Third-party payment gateways

A third-party payment gateway is a service that connects your online business to credit card acquirers. It provides a safe and secure way for customers to pay for goods and services from your website or application.

Its primary function is to verify the customer’s bank card details and transfer funds if the purchase is accepted. It also protects merchants from fraud and keeps customer data confidential.

In addition to security features, it should be PCI-compliant and offer easy integration with your business’s internal systems. It also supports multiple programming languages, allowing you to customize the platform for your needs quickly.

Another important consideration is cost. Choosing the right payment gateway can help you save time and money by reducing the amount of manual processing needed to accept payments.

As a result, it can improve efficiency and productivity. It also eliminates the need for your business to maintain costly infrastructure.

A payment gateway is crucial to any business that processes credit cards. It must meet international security standards, such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).

In addition to securing your data, a secure payment gateway should also provide a fast checkout experience for your customers. This will make them more likely to return to your site.

If you have a high-risk business, selecting a payment gateway with comprehensive fraud prevention tools is even more critical. This can help you identify good orders, decline bad ones, and set aside questionable transactions for manual review.

It should also support all primary payment methods, including e-wallets, prepaid cards, and credit and debit cards. It should also be able to process a variety of currencies, including foreign currencies and international checks.