Website Hosting and Design

 

Accessing data collected securely

Using a secure certificate, including our shared SSL certificate, encrypts the information passed between the browser and server. When you use this encryption on a form page, for example, the data being submitted is secure.

Note however that you need to do something to protect the data coming out of the server on it's way to you if you are serious about protecting the data collected by your forms.

There are four ways to accomplish this:

1) Have the form email your server-based POP email account. Read your mail in the webmail on cpanel, and log into cpanel securely by typing https://www.yourdomain.com:2083 This will mean that the mail being displayed in your web browser is also being transmitted over a secure connection.

2) Create a mySQL database to store the information entered by the form (using a PERL or PHP script) and browse the database using phpmyadmin on the cpanel, logging in securely as above. Again, your data is securely transmitted to your browser.

3) Write a simple PHP script to access the above database in a web page that you can call up, and call the page in the same secure fashion that you call the order form. Obviously, only you should be able to access this page (password protection is warrented on this one)!

4) Use a perl script like simplesecure.pl (clone of formmail.pl with PGP level encryption built in) to mail yourself the data (into an offline mail program like outlook), and then use PGP to decrypt in on arrival.

The first three options are very easy, and should be considered as important to protecting your visitor's sensitive information.

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