How do you know when you've reached a site that uses these security technologies? Internet Explorer displays a lock icon that you can easily spot in the browser's status bar at the bottom of your computer screen. When you see this lock, you know that you can safely send information to this site over the Internet.

Internet mail security: Internet Explorer 4.0's mail and newsgroup program -- Outlook Express -- provides extra security whether you're sending or receiving messages over the Internet. Through Outlook Express's support of the S/MIME security standard, you can encrypt the messages you send and be assured that the e-mail you receive is from a valid source.

This level of security is provided through encryption and certificates. You can get a certificate to verify your personal identity through a certifying authority such as VeriSign.

Read more about obtaining certificates.

Secured online banking worldwide: Through Server Gated Cryptography (SGC), Internet Explorer 4.0 makes it possible for people around the world to safely conduct financial transactions over the Internet with many international banks. SGC offers extremely strong 128-bit encryption to worldwide online banking customers for the first time.

In the near future, Microsoft will add support for Transport Layer Security (TLS), a new secure channel protocol currently under development by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), which supercedes SSL. TLS builds upon existing protocols to create an improved Internet secure channel protocol.