Type of SSL Encryption Certificates

In my previous article, I had explained that what is SSL and how does it work? There are many types of SSL and it’s different for different websites. Some are low cost and some are expensive. Some websites provides free SSL too which we will discuss later.

These SSLs are available in various types and verification levels:

Certificate Verification Level

Extended Verification certificate : 

These type of SSL certificate provide the highest level of security, trust and customer conversion for online businesses. Whenever somebody visits a website that uses an EV certificate, whenever a user visits on a website which uses an EV Certificate then a green padlock icon along with the name of your business would be shown on address bar of the web browser. This is a highly recognized and encrypted SSL certificate used by all top online merchants and retailers, banking sites and highly recommended for those businesses who are looking to create customer trust immediately on their site.

Organization Valid Certificate

This certificate is used to verify and protect the online business. It tells costumer that they’re visiting a secure and verified website. each OV certificate contains the complete company name and address details, which implies they provide a really high level of assurance to finish users over valid certificates. However, as a result of they’re not valid for CA / B platform standards, they do not have the ability to turn green padlock on the browser address bar.

Domain Valid Certificate

DV certificates provide the same high levels of data encryption as the other validation levels but don’t provide assurance about the identity of the business behind the website. But both EV and OV certificates are issued when  after the applicant organization has been issued by a certificate authority manually, Domain Valid certificates are issued after domain control has been created using an automated online process. These certificates are widely used by small or medium sized websites and it’s favorite for bloggers due to their faster responsiveness times and lower price points.

 Single Domain Certificate

A single domain certificate allows a client to secure one fully Qualified domain name on a single certificate. Let’s take as an example, a certificate purchased for a domain will enable customers to secure any and all pages on that domain. The simple nature of the single domain certificate makes it ideal for small or medium sized businesses managing a restricted number of websites.

 Wildcard SSL Certificate

A Wildcard certificates allow businesses to secure a single domain, and unlimited sub-domains of that domain. For example, a wildcard certificate for ‘*.domain.com’ may also be used to secure ‘blog.domain.com’, ‘support.domain.com, ‘anything-else.domain.com’ etc. A wildcard certificate will automatically secure any sub-domains that a business will add in the future. They additionally helpful in modifying management processes by reducing the quantity of certificates that require to be tracked. For growing any online businesses, This certificates provide a flexible, cost effective alternative to multiple single certificate purchases.

  Multi Domain SSL Certificates (MDCs)

A Multi-Domain certificate allows website owners to secure multiple, distinct domains on a 1 single certificate. for example, one Multi-Domain certificate will be used to secure domain1.com, domain1.co, domain1.co.uk, domain1.net then on. Indeed, it will allows you to secure up to 100 completely different domains (or wildcard domains) on a single certificate. Customers will simply add or remove domains at any time whenever they require.

Unified Communication Certificate (UCC)

Unified Communications Certificates are specifically designed to secure Microsoft® Exchange and office Communications environments. This certificates uses the subject alternative Name (SAN) field which allows site owners to include up to 100+ domains via using a single certificate and eliminating the necessity for various scientific addresses per website that will be needed otherwise. Unified Communications Certificates also support the Microsoft Exchange Auto discover service, a strong feature that simplifies to manage  client administration. As with Multi Domain Certificate a single Unified Communications Certificates will reduce so many SSL management duties while allowing customers to understand cost savings over individual purchases.

Code Signing Certificate

Code Signing certificates allow code site owners to sign digitally their code to convince end-users that it hasn’t been changed by a 3rd party. Code signing certificates are trusted by all major OS and browsers, thus end-users won’t longer see warning notifications after they decide to install your code.

So, that’s all are different kinds of SSL certificate which can be buy and use from different website. You can purchase any of them according to your utilization. I hope this article helped you a lot to know about SSL in depth.

What is SSL and How it’s Works?

Millions of people use Internet every day for sending emails, purchasing goods from e-commerce shopping sites, regular online bank transactions, create their own accounts by placing their personal details in many sites such as Facebook or even for opening an email account, and login regularly on different websites. Have you ever thought, that we provide all confidential data such our name, mobile number, email address, bank account details or card details during payment etc which we give details on the internet, could be misuse by hackers, is that safe from them? I guess very few people think so.

With all our data or personal details that we share with any site, we need a secure connection which will keep our personal details under privacy secure from third-party. If our personal data is not secure then it can be stolen by hacking or phishing. To avoid this problem, nowadays all websites are using SSL encryption protocol. Top Search Engine Google recently released a security update for its Chrome Browser and mandatory SSL for every websites. But the question is that what is SSL? That’s what in this article I will tell you that What is SSL? and how does it work?

SSL is stands for Secure Socket Layer, it is actually a standard security encryption protocol which is used for establishing encrypted links between a web server and a we browser.These encrypted protocols provide a secure connection between internet browsers and websites that allows Internet users to safely exchange data them with websites. In today’s time, almost all websites are using SSL technology ensures that all data transmitted between the web server and web browser remains encrypted during online communication that makes be impossible for hackers who are ready to exploit any opportunity to hack and phishing.

How can we identify SSL online?

The website that uses SSL is the domain name (such as http://www.wordpress.com) which is associated with the padlock image associated with it which appears in the URL of our web browser and is written with the domain http with https, which is Indicates that the website is completely secure by SSL. When a user clicks on the padlock image that appears in the browser address bar on the left side, some information will be related to the website’s SSL identity and other information shown to the user. Each website has its own unique SSL certificate.

With an Extended Validation SSL Certificate, the address bar additionally will shows the registered name of the company that owns the website, the name of the issuing Certificate Authority  and, an additional green padlock indicator. For better understanding look at the following Image:

Extended Validation SSL Certificate Format

SSL is also called TLS (Transport Layer Security) Protocol. It can be used not only in the website but in e-mails and other places. If someone is running an e-commerce site, it is very important to use SSL because all the information is taken in order to pay the customer to this site.

SSL certificate uses two cryptographic keys; first is public key and the second is private key. These two keys together make secure contact through which the data is securely shared.

Every website has its own unique SSL certificate. There are 4 different types of SSL encryption protocol certificates available for websites. So its depend upon you which one suits on your website as per requirements.

How does SSL works?

When we goes to search or type the domain name of a website in address bar on web browser. Then the web browser establish to connect with the server of the website that is uses SSL protocol. User requests from the server of his website that they give their identity. After requesting, the web server sends a copy of its SSL certificate to a public key browser. An end-user checks the certificate so the user will decide whether or not he will trust the website to share his private confidential information. Once the user decides to trust him after checking, it sends back an encrypt message to their server.

Here is the Full Working Process:

• When we goes to search or type the domain name of a website in address bar on web browser.
• An internet user asks their browser to make a secure connection to a website (e.g. https://www.example.com)
• The browser obtains the website’s IP address from a DNS server then it requests a secure connection to the website.
• For establishing a secure connection, the web browser requests that the server identifies itself by sending a duplicate copy of its own SSL certificate to the browser.
• Then web browser checks the certificate to ensure:

1. That its signed by a trusted CA (Certificate Authority).
2. That the certificate is valid – it’s not revoked or expired.
3. That its confirms to required security standards on key lengths and other important info.
4. That the domain listed on the certificate will matches exact domain that was requested by the user.

• When the browser confirms that the website is trust-able, then it automatically generates a symmetric session key which it encrypts with the public key within the certificate of the website. The session key is then sent to the web server.
• The web server uses its private key to decrypt the symmetric session key.
• The server sends back an acknowledgement that’s encrypted with the session key.
• Finally, all the data transmitted between the server and the we browser is fully protected and encrypted too.

Where to Buy SSL?

SSL service offers by many big domain and web hosting companies, such as GoDaddy, BigRock, HostGator etc. When we buy a hosting server for our website, then they also offers SSL hosting service where we can buy the hosting SSL certificate on additional costs along with our website, which will helps keep our website safe secured. Besides there are some companies that provide SSL certification services for free. One of those popular names is Let’s Encrypt, its a project of the Internet Research Group, which provides free SSL certificate publicly. Letsencrypt also sponsor some gaint IT companies like Google, Facebook, Mozilla, Cisco etc.

I m sure you understood from this article about What is SSL, how does it work and where to buy? If you need any more information related to SSL, your welcome you can comment here.

Google Chrome Started Checking Your Website is Secured or Not

In the news, Google Chrome one of the most popular web browser has been started marking HTTP sites as not secure websites. Chrome will mark all plain HTTP sites as “not secure.” Google has already given webmasters and publishers 6 months notice of this upcoming updates, and it’s already rolled out yesterday July 24.

When a user open a web-page then Instead of the tiny “i” icon for HTTP URLs, there will be a warning in the address bar shows that the site is “Not Secure.” Here is what it looks currently before users upgrade to Chrome 68. Note, most of those users who download Chrome are automatically set for browser updates and that’s why they are planning to be upgraded to Chrome 68 automatically in the future.

It is highly recommended to move your website to HTTPS URLs via switching SSL Implement and be secure, even though your website doesn’t ask for payment info, logins or alternative private data. depending upon the metrics of a website and scope of the project, a migration from HTTP to HTTPS will be quite an undertaking.

This “Not secure” warning is a part of Google’s recommendation for making safer web browsing experience. This is an ongoing effort that started back when Google made HTTPS as a ranking factor in year 2014.

Now, Google Chrome is the 2nd web browser that implement a warning for non-HTTPS sites, with Mozilla Firefox being the first web browser.

Currently, other popular web browsers such as Microsoft Edge and Apple Safari  still don’t show any warnings for non-HTTPS sites.

That’s the reason, you must have to protect your website via switching to SSL and make’s your site secured and encrypted. So you don’t have to worried about it if you already switched to SSL.