There are various strategies e-commerce sites use to process credit card data. Some calculate the transaction and store the data on special servers, and some process the transaction and delete the card information automatically. Still other sites have various ways of handling and storing the encrypted data. When you shop on the Web, the first thing to look for is secure ordering functionality. It means that when you are ready to input your credit card information and send it, the information is encrypted.
Encryption scrambles the data so it is unintelligible to anyone trying to get it illegally.
You can tell if a site has encryption in two ways. Finally, you know you're as safe as you can be if you see a VeriSign icon on the home page of a site, or on the secure server pages. VeriSign is the best known of the verification services. It adds another layer of security to an e-commerce environment. The FBI uses VeriSign products.