SSL Encryption
Austria Connection provides 256-bit SSL two-way encryption for all information processed within our payment section. Note the small PADLOCK ICON in the status bar of your browser on the bottom right side. When this icon shows a "LOCKED" padlock, you are within the high-security area. This means that packet-sniffing hacking programs CANNOT intercept your private credit card or identity information. The padlock cannot appear unless your browser has read and verify the information contained on a SECURITY CERTIFICATE (provided in our case by GeoTrust, a leading Certification Authority encryption company).

How Safe is Ordering from this Site?
It is impossible for information to be stolen from transactions performed within an encrypted server environment. Also, Austria Connection payment information is processed by only one person ALL THE TIME and no paper records are filed. This makes shopping from our site FAR SAFER than shopping at a restaurant, department store, or many other places where you trust your credit card on a daily basis.

Is Internet Shopping Generally Safe?
Research shows that far more credit card fraud is performed by individuals who acquire access to vendor files from WITHIN THE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT of a seller than occurs even on NON-ENCRYPTED Internet sites. In short, theft occurs mostly from poor security on stored records and databases (by data entry personnel) or from personal abuse of credit cards (waitresses who keep a carbon copy of a transaction, department stores whose employees rifle through trash for discarded transaction slips, etc.). Internet sites typically enforce far stricter standards on access of information, and do not have these sources of paper files that can be pilfered, and thus enjoy a remarkably high level of security in comparison to any other means of shopping. When you hear a report of Internet-based identity theft, 98% of the time what actually occurred is that someone used a credit card under false pretenses after STEALING THE ID INFORMATION FROM A DATABASE THAT WAS NOT ONLINE but rather in storage at a physical facility. They may have then used the ID information online, but the problem was NOT with security on the Internet.

Shop with confidence from the Internet, particularly from sites displaying the LOCKED PADLOCK icon at checkout.