March 17, 2005
USPSA occasionally receives question about the security of credit card processing on www.uspsa.org. There are several aspects to security of on-line credit card security which may be of interest to visitors to this web site.
USPSA maintains it's own web server at www.uspsa.org, however, we use specialized services from two reputable external vendors for the secure portion of our transactions:
authorize.net - handles all credit card authrizations. If you are ordering a USPSA membership, paying a mission count fee, or a nationals wait list fee (starting April 10, 2005), you will be taken to a secure "authorize.net" page for entry of your credit card number.
americart/cartserver - is a specialized shopping cart system which handles all USPSA store orders. If you order merchandise from the USPSA Store, you will be taken to a secure "cartserver.com" page for entry of your credit card number.
Your credit card number is never stored or processed on the USPSA.ORG web server.
So, don't worry if you don't see the "secure" icon in your web browser at the start of the membership signup or purchase process. You will be take to a secure ("https:") page when it is time to enter your credit card number.
Depending on your browser settings, you may see a note that the secure page is loading "insecure elements." Don't worry about this - these checkout pages load the USPSA log from our server, and that message simply indicated that the logo (but no other page content) is being transmitted in unencrypted form.
Web security is much more than an encrypted connection to the server. Credit card numbers must be safeguarded while they are stored on a server. USPSA uses the services of two firms which specialize in the secure handling of credit card data (authorize.net and americart), so any compromise of the USPSA.ORG server would not result in the release of any credit card information.
Only those USPSA staff members whose job requires the processing of fees and store orders have access to the administrative interface used for processing of credit card charges.