News

12 12 2012

Information portal «my Osvita» — reliable protection of personal data.

Dear users, the Research Institute of Applied Information Technologies takes care of the security of information processed by its products. To do this, https:// protocol is a tool for transmitting information in a secure manner.

If you have ever used popular social networking sites, email or banking portals, you have come across a suggestion to enable the https:// protocol. A user who does not know such computer terms thinks something like this: „thank you, but what is https:// anyway and why should I use it?“.

You should be aware that most Internet site addresses begin with the following characters http://. What does the http protocol mean in computer terminology? This is the tool needed to transfer data from the site server (information store) to your browser. This protocol has been used for many years and has undergone many changes. When you visit a site using the http protocol, all data between your browser and the site server is transmitted in the open, i.e. in unencrypted form. What does it mean? You can think of it like this: when you make a call on a landline phone, and some person connects to the telephone wire, he can eavesdrop on your conversation. About the same with the http protocol, it can be listened to by anyone who has access to the data channel. Imagine the following situation, you ran into an Internet cafe and decided to check your email. You open your browser, enter your username and password using an http connection, and here you have just allowed someone to access your data. Of course, not all cafes will specifically lie in wait for you and bug you, but the risk is quite high.

How to protect yourself from such cases? This is where the https:// protocol comes to the rescue. How does the https:// protocol protect? By accessing a site whose address bar begins with the inscription https:// (not http://), you transmit information from your browser to the site server in encrypted form, so most, excluding the possibility of viewing it.

Now you know that whenever you use sites that use the https:// protocol, your data is protected. This protection is also provided to you by the information portal «my Osvita».