While many of us would have frequently heard this term "SSL Certificate", but very few of us actually know what it is or how it works and since very few of us really know what an SSL Certificate is, it's quite obvious that they might not be aware of its importance or criticality in the world of computers and internet.
While many of us would have frequently heard this term "SSL Certificate", but very few of us actually know what it is or how it works and since very few of us really know what an SSL Certificate is, it's quite obvious that they might not be aware of its importance or criticality in the world of computers and internet.
Specifically termed as Secure Socket Layer Protocol Certificate, SSL certificate was developed by Netscape to add security factor to the transactions between browsers and web servers. The protocol employs a third party, a Certificate Authority to identify transactions at both the ends or if its difficult to understand that way, in layman's language SSL Certificate for a website is like a Passport or a Driver's License that is issued by a trusted source known as Certificate Authority.
To canvas the basic understanding of an SSL Certificate through a real world example, let's imagine someone sending a mail through a regular postal system in envelope. Since it has no security factor, anyone with access to that envelope can easily retrieve its contents and if it looks valuable they might even take a possession of it or make changes to it.
To cut the long story short, An SSL Certificate is something that encrypts virtual transactions or transitions or any exchange of data over the internet thus making it completely secure.
Since there are many types of SSL Certificates, not all of them are same if compared to each other. When it comes to SSL protection on any website, it is vital to consider what type of certificate you get. Since it's a security application, it essentially serves two main purposes.
• Identifying your business website
• Encrypting the sensitive information contained in your website
• SSL Certificates have different pricing structure ranging from $30 to $1,000 a year and how much it will cost to have an SSL protection really depends on the type of certificate you use.
Listed below are main types of SSL certificates and their features:
Extended Validated SSL Certificate (EV): The power of EV SSL / Extended Validation SSL protects web site users and their confidential information over the internet. Secure your eBusiness now throughout the world with an
EV SSL / Extended Validation SSL certificate.
Organization Validated SSL Certificate (OV): Multiple sources of information are checked for a business. This is done to ensure that information found about the names of the business and who owns and runs the business (the whois record) matches with registration of the business. Another check is done to ensure that these details match with local business listings. When all of the required information matches, the business is issued a certificate. A certificate that is issued using an organizational validation method will ensure the certificate is properly verified. This allows an online user to see any information that is needed to verify identity of a business. The user will see an indicator on their browser that a site has been issues an SSL certificate.
Domain Validation SSL Certificate (DV): Domain Validation is a primary domain certificate that comes with easy installation process. If you do not need extra assurance for your website visitors, then you would install a Domain Validation SSL certificate.
Dedicated SSL Certificates: These types of Certificates are specifically assigned to the website's unique domain name. So dedicated SSL certificates often require unique domain names and cannot be shared with multiple domain names, not even sub domains. These types of Certificates are usually most expensive.
Shared SSL Certificates: As the name itself suggests, shared SSL Certificates are the ones that can be shared with others unlike dedicated SSL Certificates. What that means that you can use someone else's SSL Certificate for your own website, but the drawback is that the name on the certificate would not match yours but it will reflect the name of whoever is the owner of that certificate. Most importantly during the transition of website between web servers and hosts, this type of SSL encryption cannot be used. These types of SSL Certificates are mainly offered by many ecommerce web hosts making things really easy and all inclusive.
Free SSL Certificates: By using the word free, we don't mean that it comes at absolutely no cost, but these are the certificates where the cost is far less than compared to above three types of SSL Certificates. There are many companies offering these types of certificates but the level of encryption they have are not same as the paid ones and hence its really important to consider getting this kind of protection from a reputable organization. Free SSL certificates are sometimes offered as part of a web hosting package for an eCommerce site. Dedicated SSL certificates are often provided as part of a dedicated hosting package, in which case they are definitely linked to the customer's domain name, rather than the web host's.
Wildcard SSL Certificates: These types of Certificates are mainly used for websites having sub domains ensuring the complete protection of all the sub domains. Wildcard SSL protection authorizes protection of different aspects of a Web portal with one SSL Certificate.
When it comes to SSL security, one most important thing to keep in mind while making comparison between different types of SSL Certificates is the level of security offered. However 128 bit encryption is what Industry standard is. Even 256 bit comparison is available for a increased fee and some companies even offer 58 bit encryption to make it less expensive. The logic is that higher the encryption number, the better you get the security.