Most e-commerce sites use sophisticated encryption to encode sensitive information and make it unreadable to outsiders. Whale's system, called "E-Gap," goes another route. What it does is ensure that hackers cannot jump from the Internet into a company's "back office" -- . . .
Most e-commerce sites use sophisticated encryption to encode sensitive information and make it unreadable to outsiders. Whale's system, called "E-Gap," goes another route. What it does is ensure that hackers cannot jump from the Internet into a company's "back office" -- the internal Web server or computer where it stores sensitive information such as a buyer's credit card details.

The system consists of two servers, or computer systems. One is connected to the Internet and the other to the back office. A black box in the middle contains a memory device toggling between them.

The link for this article located at Wired is no longer available.