Software Security

An overview of the security needs of Forex software

Foreign exchange software should be designed for the utmost security, privacy, integrity and if necessary, recovery of data. Clearly, any security holes can mean millions of dollars in losses.

Data exchange

The common method for securing the exchange of data is to encrypt it. Encryption means that the data transferred over the communication line is encoded in a special way at the sending end, and decoded using the same algorithm in reverse at the receiving end. The data that goes through the communication channel is meaningless to an eavesdropper, even if he does succeed in intercepting the data. Unless the eavesdropper can decode the data, he cannot read it. The encryption strength is dependent upon the length of the encryption key. The key that is used to encrypt/decrypt the data is a very long number. The longer the number, the harder it is, exponentially, to decode the data. Lengths of keys vary between 32, 64, 128, 256 bit and so on. The minimum length for good security is 64-bit. The problem with selecting a very long key is the computing power that is required to encode/decode the message. So selecting a very long key can mean slow processing time. Privacy and data integrity have their own software protocols but are generally handled in the same way as described above.

Data recovery

Important data should be backed up in more than one location. Physical disasters such as earthquakes, software/hardware failures should be able to be managed by backing up the data in more than one physical location.

Security in ClickForex

ClickForex treats the issues of data security, privacy, integrity and backup with the utmost attention and care. This is achieved through:

• Ensuring authorized access only. ClickForex uses two layersof top class firewall protection: one at the server level and one at the application level.
• For user authentication and data transfer, ClickForex uses an advanced SSL by Verisign.
• Separating the application servers (the servers that handle our clients' online activity) from the transaction information, this is stored on a different data server.
• For data recovery, integrity and replication, ClickForex uses two different server farms, physically located away from each other. Data must be synchronized in both locations, and thus cannot be tampered with. All of the information on the servers is encrypted.
• Each server farm has very high physical security. Armed guards are on-site 24 hours a day, and access to the premises is strictly forbidden except for authorized personnel.