Table of Contents
What is SSL?
The full form of SSL is the “Secure Sockets Layer”. SSL is an internet security protocol developed by Netscape in 1995 for ensuring authentication and legitimacy of websites, and integrity of data on the internet. Now a days TLS is used in place of SSL.
What is an SSL certificate?
An SSL certificate is a certificate that is given to a website digitally that verifies and authenticates a website’s identity and enables the users to have an encrypted connection to the website. It verifies that three is an encrypted link between a web server and a web browser like chrome, opera, or edge. Organizations and companies need SSL certificates for their websites to secure the transactions by websites and for keeping the information of customers, fully secured and private.
There were many versions of the SSL protocol since its development, but there were security flaws always. Now it is succeeded by TLS (Transport Layer Security), new version of the protocol is still usually called by the old name SSL. SSL/TLS secured websites have “HTTPS” in its URL and others that are not secured by SSL/TLS have “HTTP” only.
How to tell if a site has an SSL certificate?
You can verify it easily by just looking at the address bar of your browser.
- If the URL begins with HTTPS then the site is secured using an SSL certificate.
- A secured padlock shows up in at start of address bar which you can click on to see the security details and certificate.
- Nowadays browsers like chrome, mozilla, and edge shows a warning signs when a connection is not secure such as :
- a red padlock
- a padlock that is open
- a line going through the website’s address
- a warning triangle on top of the padlock emblem.
Why do I need an SSL certificate?
The secure socket layer prevents criminals from reading or modifying information transferred between two systems.
Your website needs an SSL certificate if you want to ask personal information from user. Also Chrome, Firefox and other browsers have began issuing warnings that non secured sites. Google announced recently that SSL is a ranking signal in search algorithms, so if your site does not have a ssl certificate, your site will be harder to find, which can lead to lessen traffic on your site and revenue at the end.
How do I get an SSL certificate?
SSL certificates can be obtained directly from a Certificate Authority (CA). Cost of SSL 0p=on the level of security you require. Once you decide on the type of certificate you require, there are many certificate issuers, which offers certificates for different security levels.
Obtaining your SSL involves the following steps:
- Set up your server and ensure your WHOIS record is updated and is matching your report that you are submitting to the Certificate Authority
- Generate a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) on your server where your website is being hosted.
- Submit this to the Certificate Authority to validate your domain and company details.
- Install the certificate you get once after completing the process
Once obtaining the certificate , you need to configure the certificate on your web host.
What are the Key Challenges in getting SSL certificate?
IT teams’ workload has grown significantly while their budgets may not reflect this change. In addition to insufficient visibility, these inconsistencies have called forth the following problems:
- Due to the lack of automation there is too much manual work for the IT team as it takes a lot of time to perform processes like certificate requests and renewal and also it is error prone.
- Staff turnover- When admins of an organization leave ,their email accounts may be closed and certificate expiration alerts can’t be received.
- Sluggish response as if a company’s website have expired certificate, renewing it is a time consuming process that could take up to several days and the company can experience outage by public.
What are the types of SSL certificate
- There are many types of SSL certificates such as:
- Extended Validation certificates (EV SSL)
- Organization Validated certificates (OV SSL)
- Domain Validated certificates (DV SSL)
- Wildcard SSL certificates
- Multi-Domain SSL certificates (MDC)
- Unified Communications Certificates (UCC)
What information does an SSL certificate contain?
SSL certificates include: The domain name that the certificate was issued for Which person, organization, or device it was issued to, Which certificate authority issued it, The certificate authority’s digital signature, Associated subdomains ,Issue date of the certificate, Expiration date of the certificate, The public key (the private key is kept a secret)
Conclusion
So far we have seen the advantages of the SSL. So it is very necessary to use SSL on all website. Use of SSL certificates will help protect your customers, help protect you, and help you to gain your customers trust.
