Why your website requires an SSL Certificate in 2020

Sep 18 , 2019

Have you checked why some website URLs starts with  https and others with http? Why do you happen to see a lock/padlock before the beginning of the URL?

The lock icon and the https’ in the address bar denotes that the website that you are entering is secure and is applying a protected and encrypted connection. Such security and encryption are configured to the website using an SSL Certificate.

What is an SSL Certificate?

Simply put SSL stands for Secure Socket Layer. It is a security protocol that establishes a secure and encrypted communication link between a web server and the web browser.

In order to have an SSL connection and activate on your website, you need to have an SSL Certificate.

At the point when introduced on a web server, SSL Certificate initiates a protected latch and https convention, permitting end-clients to safely submit delicate data like their credit card details, banking data, individual details and more to a merchant’s website.

What is a “Secure” website?

Utilized by millions of online organizations and people, SSL lessens the danger of classified data from getting under the control of hackers and criminals. In basic words, SSL security empowers safe communication between two proposed parties. According to a report by Mozilla, the greater part of the sites on the web use a SSL Certificate to encrypt the web traffic.

Put it simply, SSL verifies the data that is shared between you (the browser) and the site that you are visiting or collaborating with.  Any data that you typically submit to a site (or recover from a site) is sent as plain text and can be viewed if a hacker is able to encrypt the message.   SSL encodes the data that is shared between the browser and the web server so that even if a user's information is intercepted by somebody they won't almost certainly read the data. 

It's not hard to comprehend why SSL has generally been viewed as a best practice for any site that is  processing transactions with sensitive data such as credit card details, personal health data or login credentials.   Presently, SSL is turning into a best practice standard for all sites, including those that don't really process sensitive information.

Unsecure Websites are now shamed by Web Browsers

You may have seen that most regular desktop browsers such as Internet Explorer, Chrome, FireFox  and even mobile browsers, such as Chrome on Android, and Safari on iOS unmistakably show lock symbols to demonstrate when a web page is secure by means of HTTPS. 

Chrome specifically goes above and beyond by naming standard HTTP destinations as "unsecure"

In this blog, we will cover the questions on which websites need SSL Certificate and which do not. 

1. For E-Commerce websites:

An SSL Certificate is an unquestionable requirement for each web based business site, regardless of whether the customers don't pay on the web or don't share their banking/advanced wallet subtleties. Why? There can be three customer cases while buying things from an internet business website. 

Once in a while, customers doesn't pay online for a service or product.   For instance, in the event that somebody buys a book from an online store and selects cash as delivery option on checkout, the user then needs to register for that site, and enter his contact details, which are then kept private in all cases.

Another case could be third-party payment gateways such as Paypal or PayTm. All the sensitive data is being processed at the website's gateway. For instance,  when a user purchase a product from a site, and you are redirected to PayPal for transaction. In such cases, PayPal will contact the bank directly and complete the transactions. 

Here, your site doesn't keep the data, and there are no odds of it getting spilled. Be that as it may, in the event that you are catching even the scarcest data, similar to name, telephone number, address, or email address, your customers won't want it spilled.

Lastly, you accept sensitive information such as credit card details on your site first, and later send the data to third party gateways.  For this situation, you need to encrypt all the customers sensitive information. 

So, if you are an e-commerce website, don't think and hesitate, get it installed today.

2. Submitting Informations via Forms

Not every one of the sites collect money or charge credit card information online. A few sites gather data by requesting that customers to submit a contact form or login form. For instance, some websites ask for basic details such as name, telephone, local address, email address to allow a user to download any whitepapers or informational PDFs.

Such sites likewise need a SSL Certificate to secure the data of clients or customers. 

3. SSL Certificate for Blogs

In the event that your site is just a blog, without any products or membership, and doesn't request any sort of data, at that point you needn't bother with a SSL Certificate. 

In any case, an SSL Certificate can enable you to expand the traffic. 

Conclusion

Don’t think too much. contact your web developer team to secure an SSL Certificate today!


 

Written by Aby Cherian