CompassPC®
Frequently Asked Questions
Encryption
How does encryption work?
Everything that travels through the Internet during your online banking session - from your password to your instructions to pay a bill - becomes a string of unrecognizable numbers before entering the Internet. Compass' computers and the browser you use to surf the web understand the mathematical formulas, called algorithms, that turn your banking session into numeric code and back into meaningful information.
These algorithms serve as door locks on your account information. While Compass and your computer can easily translate this code back to meaningful language, this process would be a daunting, almost impossible, task for unauthorized intruders. That's because there are billions of possible keys that could potentially solve each formula, but only one that will work. Every time you begin an online banking session, your computer and Compass' system agree on a random number that serves as the key for the rest of the conversation. What that random number is depends largely on the strength of encryption used by your browser.
