Confidentiality

Confidentiality means that as the user's information moves over the Internet, it cannot be read by anyone except the user and the financial institution. Without confidentiality, the user's banking information would be about as safe as if we were to send the user's monthly banking statement without first putting the statement in an envelope. To address confidentiality, SumxNet™ uses a technique called encryption. Like the envelope around a bank statement, encryption prevents unintended access to banking information.

Encryption is a mathematical technique that takes information and an encryption key and converts the information to an unreadable form. The unreadable form is then transmitted over the Internet. When the unreadable form is received, a decryption key decodes the message to its original, readable form. The only way to recover the information is to use the decryption key. This system is called a public-private encryption key system. This name comes from the idea that we will provide our encryption key to anyone who connects to SumxNet. This is called the public key. The decryption key is installed and locked into SumxNet and is never given to anyone. This is called the private key.

Sumx recommends the use of 128-bit encryption if possible (also called "Domestic" or "U.S." grade encryption), currently offered in the latest browser versions of Netscape's Navigator and Microsoft's Explorer.