The beauty of information technology and the Internet is that you can reach thousands upon thousands of users in any corner of the globe in an instant. The downside of that is that there may be strangers or hackers with malicious intents prying into your personal information or proprietary data. To prevent unauthorized users from accessing, downloading, copying, editing or altering your information on the Web, security and encryption software can help.

Security typically refers to user-level access controls that keep casual viewers out of certain areas of your website or online server. If you think of your website as a storefront, the places that you want your visitors to see would be the showroom and aisles of your store. But you don’t want them in the employee breakroom, managers office or behind the register. Security software helps keep users away from administrative consoles and other sensitive data through authentication, passwords and firewalls.

Encryption is another layer of security which essentially makes data readable only to those for whom it is intended. Because data is transmitted via communal networks, it can easily be intercepted by hackers. But just like radio transmissions during World War II, secure data that is transmitted over the Internet is encoded so that even if it is intercepted, it can’t be understood by anyone but the intended recipient. Encryption is useful for e-commerce, where credit card information, email addresses and telephone numbers are exchanged, and for email servers, where corporate secrets and proprietary information may be sent via mobile smartphones and wireless networks.

For more information on security and encryption, read some of the information contained in the links below.