Encryption takes meaningful text and numbers and scrambles them into numerical nonsense before transmitting them across the Internet. The encryption process occurs for information going both directions - from your computer to the credit union and vice versa. Because there are billions of potential keys, it would take a thief several lifetimes to come up with the exact key a specific transmission uses. Domestic, or 128-bit, encryption is exponentially more difficult to break. TFCU uses the latest firewall technology available.
Cookies are also necessary since they are used in the encryption algorithm.
Cookies do not compromise privacy. Finally, cookies created by one site will only work with that specific site. Site A, for example, cannot read cookies generated by Site B and then use that information for purposes for which it was not intended.