What is an SSL certificate? How does it affect your website?

An SSL certificate is essential for protecting your website even when it does not handle sensitive information such as credit cards, providing security and data integrity for both the website and its information. user profile on your website.

What is an SSL certificate? How does it affect your website?

What is an SSL certificate?

An SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate is a digital certificate that authenticates the identity of a website and encrypts information sent to the server using SSL technology. Encryption is the process of scrambling data into an unreadable format that can only be 'returned' to a readable format by a valid decryption key.

SSL certificates are used as electronic "passports" to establish authentication of online information in case of doing business on the Web. When Internet users attempt to send confidential information to a Web server, their browser accesses the server's digital certificate and establishes a secure connection.

SSL certificate includes the information below:

- Name of SSL certificate owner.
- SSL certificate serial number and expiration date.
- Copy of the certificate owner's public key.
- Digital signature of the SSL certificate issuing authority.

SSL certificates encrypt sensitive information

The main reason for using an SSL certificate is simply to encrypt and protect sensitive data sent over the Internet, so that only the intended recipient can know the information. this data.

This is very important because the information you send on the Internet will be transferred from computer to computer to the destination server.

In case your sensitive data has not been encrypted with an SSL certificate, any computer acting as an 'intermediary' between your computer and the server can see your credit card number, person's name, etc. usernames and passwords and other sensitive data you submit.

When data and information are encrypted with an SSL certificate, all other users except the server you send the information to cannot read the data and information you send.

That means you no longer have to worry about your data falling into the hands of hackers or data thieves.

What is an SSL certificate? How does it affect your website?

SSL provides authentication

In addition to encrypting information and data, a valid SSL certificate also provides authentication. That means you can be sure that your information will be sent to the correct server and not to someone trying to steal your information. Why is this important?

The nature of the Internet: customer information will be sent through many computers. Any one of these computers could 'impersonate' your website and trick users into submitting their personal information. The only way to avoid this situation is to use a valid Public Key Infrastructure ( PKI ) and an SSL certificate from a trusted SSL certificate provider.

Readers can refer to the articles comparing two versions of SSL certificates, free and paid SSL certificates, to better distinguish the advantages, disadvantages and safety of SSL.

Why is the SSL certificate provider so important? Trusted SSL certificate providers only issue SSL certificates to a company that has been validated and gone through several checks to confirm it. Some types of SSL certificates, such as the EV SSL Certificate, require higher validation than other types of certificates.

How to identify a trusted SSL certificate provider? You can use SSL Wizard to compare SSL certificate providers, including SSL certificate providers for most browsers.

SSL certificates provide trust

Web browsers display signs such as a lock icon or a blue bar to let visitors know that their connection is secure. This means that visitors will trust your website when the above symbols are present.

What is an SSL certificate? How does it affect your website?

HTTPS also protects against phishing attacks. Phishing emails are emails that computer criminals use to impersonate your website. This email often includes a redirect link to their own website or uses a man-in-the-middle attack to use your domain name.

Cybercriminals are not issued SSL certificates, and therefore cannot completely impersonate your website. This means that when using HTTPS your users will be less likely to fall victim to phishing attacks by fake websites that do not have lock icons or blue bars to verify they are authentic. Trusted website.

In previous articles, Taimienphi also had an article comparing HTTPS and SSL for users to see the similarities and differences between these two protocols. If you are interested, follow the HTTPS and SSL comparison article here.

SSL is required for PCI Compliance

To accept credit card information on your website, you must pass certain tests showing that you are complying with Payment Card Industry (PCI) standards . One of the requirements is to use a valid SSL certificate.

Limitations of SSL certificates

With so many advantages above, users certainly have no reason not to use SSL certificates. However, besides that, SSL certificates also have some limitations.

Firstly, the fee is the most obvious limitation. SSL certificate providers must establish a trust and authentication infrastructure, so there will be costs involved.

The second limitation is performance. Because the information you send must be encrypted by the server, it takes up more server resources. The performance difference is noticeable on websites with a large number of visitors and can be minimized with special hardware in such cases.

Overall, the benefits that an SSL certificate brings outweigh its limitations. It is important that you know how to choose and use a valid SSL certificate for your website to protect your customers as well as yourself, building and strengthening more trust from your customers.

One thing to note is that when using SSL, users will also encounter many related errors, for example when accessing Facebook or Gmail, with the way to fix SSL errors when accessing Facebook or Gmail that we have provided, hopefully You can fix this error yourself and access the services normally.

Above is useful information about what is an SSL certificate? How does TipsMake affect your website? If you have any questions or concerns, you can leave them in the comments section below the article, your questions will be answered by TipsMake as soon as possible.

AWS (Amazon Web Services) certification can help improve your career profile and increase your income. It also has the potential to add credibility and confidence when interacting with stakeholders and customers. AWS Certification is often used to demonstrate an individual's knowledge and skills in the field of cloud computing and AWS services. Learn more about  what AWS is and AWS Certification here.

Marvin Fry

Update 15 June 2024