(Last updated on: November 27, 2015)
Normally customer data that gets transmitted is not encrypted (just names and addresses, which is public information) but once e-commerce becomes involved it is a different story. A URL will usually start with http BUT when you go to order something it turns into https. This means the credit card data is encrypted – this information displays because there is an SSL Certificate present.
If an organization wants to encrypt everything they can use a program called Putty. Putty is an open source program that runs on a Windows machine. It sets up a connection with a SSH machine and encrypts everything in between. The encryption is 128 bit encryption. Warning: use of Putty is illegal in countries where encryption is outlawed. An additional benefit is that you can close port 3306 on the MySQL server. In the Wintix Manual, Ch. 10 there is information – page 12 talks about HTTPS and how to get an SSL Certificate and page 41 starts the explanation on how to use Putty.