SSL Certificates

Overview

Guarantee your customers and clients a safe online experience using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates. This online security technology allows your customers to share information like credit card numbers in a secure manner. By encrypting information, SSL certificates create a barrier between criminals and valuable information. SSL certificates are essential for online shopping sites and other websites that request personal information like social security numbers and addresses.

A secure site can be identified by the prefix "https://" in place of the "http://" prefix or a small yellow lock in a corner of the web browser. SSL certificates can be implemented on your website through a variety of server tools.

Benefits

SSL certificates provide complete protection to online shoppers from hackers. The data is encrypted into a code that can only be broken by using a certain key. In order to gain access to the key, the site that receives that information has to be certified by SSL certificates. Unintended recipients cannot access information that people transfer online.

SSL certification helps you build a good reputation with your users. People will trust your website and your traffic, and you will likely experience an increase in your rankings. Finally, another benefit of SSL certificates is the peace of mind that comes with having a website that is secure. Instead of worrying about your website and customers, you can focus on marketing and advertising your business.

How It Works

SSL was created by Netscape to enable secure transactions between web servers and browsers. The SSL protocol uses a third party known as certificate authority (CA) to identify senders and recipients of every transaction. When a browser requests for a secure page, the web server sends a public key (key used by senders to encrypt a message) to the browser with its certificate. The browser then cross checks the certificate to ensure that it was issued by a certificate authority. It also makes sure that the certificate is valid and related to the contracting website. The browser then uses the public key to encrypt a random symmetric encryption key, which is sent to the server. Both the data and the URL are encrypted before they are sent to the server. The symmetric encryption key is decrypted by the web server using a private key (key used by server to decrypt the session key). The web server sends the requested information back with a symmetric key. The HTTP data and HTML document is decrypted by your browser and then displayed on your system.

Companies/Brands

SSL certificates are sold and designed by numerous companies. One of the most popular companies is VeriSign. Others companies include Register and DigiCert.