Automatic Merchant Fraud Protection With the Fast Charge Payment Gateway
In addition to the merchant-initiated protection mechanisms described in this section, several automatic features have been incorporated into the Merchant Fraud Protection 
module to block out customers exhibiting suspicious buying behaviors, including:
- A feature to block a credit card that is submitted and declined twice within 24 hours using different expiration dates.
- A feature to check City and State entries for validity against the zip code entered.
- A feature to check area codes for validity against the zip code entered.
SSL Technology
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology is the industry-standard method for protecting web communications developed by Netscape Communications Corporation.
The SSL security protocol provides data encryption, server authentication, message integrity, and optional client authentication for a TCP/IP connection. Because SSL is built into all major browsers and web servers, simply installing a digital certificate turns on their SSL capabilities.
SSL comes in two strengths, 40-bit and 128-bit, which refer to the length of the “session key” generated by every encrypted transaction. The longer the key, the more difficult it is to break the encryption code.
Most browsers support 40-bit SSL sessions, and the latest browsers, including Netscape Communicator 4.0, enable users to encrypt transactions in 128-bit sessions – trillions of times stronger than 40-bit sessions.
