Clients on Silicon Dales hosting will be pleased to know that their e-commerce websites are compliant with modern security standards, and will work when PayPal (and their subsidiary company, Braintree) switch to using SHA-256.
The technical jargon is long and complicated (see below!), but because we maintain our hosting, and keep it ahead of the most recent security developments, PayPal’s IPN will still work with your e-commerce stores hosted by us.
If you’re not a client of Silicon Dales and you received the PayPal email, and your host won’t help you out, feel free to contact us to switch your hosting here.
What is SHA-256?
The SHA (Secure Hash Algorithm) is one of a number of cryptographic hash functions. A cryptographic hash is like a signature for a text or a data file. SHA-256 algorithm generates an almost-unique, fixed size 256-bit (32-byte) hash. Hash is a one way function – it cannot be decrypted back. This makes it suitable for password validation, challenge hash authentication, anti-tamper, digital signatures.
SHA-256 is one of the successor hash functions to SHA-1, and is one of the strongest hash functions available.