While visiting a website, you may have noticed a small padlock icon in the address bar, positioned at the beginning of the website URL. The icon indicates the website is authentic and secure. When you acquire an SSL certificate for your website, this padlock appears in the address bar of your website.
How does this certificate keep your website safe? Who needs an SSL certificate for their website? Let’s dig in.
What is an SSL certificate?
The term SSL is the abbreviation of Secure Sockets Layer. It is a security protocol that enables an encrypted connection between a server and a web browser. It ensures no one except the authorized entities has access to the information transferred through this connection.
An encryption algorithm essentially scrambles the data in transit so that the hackers do not get to read or modify the data.
When you get an SSL certificate for your website, besides the padlock icon, it also adds the acronym HTTPS to your website URL. HTTPS stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure. Without the certificate, it only shows HTTP, the S that stands for secure doesn’t appear in the address URL.
By clicking the padlock icon, users can see the details of the certificate. The details include:
- the domain name
- the validity period of the certificate
- the name of the organization that issued it
and others.
Who needs an SSL certificate
Ideally, anyone who is running a website should acquire an SSL certificate before they launch the website. It protects sensitive data such as credit card details, bank account information, and any other personally identifiable information.
If you have an e-commerce website where the users submit financial information to buy a product, you must get it to keep the data safe. Besides, the websites where the users need to put login credentials also need to implement SSL security protocol so that hackers do not get access to those data.
But if your website doesn’t collect sensitive data, do you still need an SSL certificate? The answer is yes; even if you do not deal with sensitive data, you still should get an SSL certificate.
When a user tries to visit a website that doesn’t have an SSL certificate, they receive a warning from the browser that the connection is not secure, and hackers can steal their data. After getting the notification, the users need to press the ‘proceed anyway’ button to visit the website. 99% of the visitors won’t take the risk to proceed to a website that is not secure, and they will leave immediately.
If your website doesn’t have one, you will lose potential customers, and all your efforts to put on a website will go in vain.
Thus, before you launch your website, talk to your web hosting company, and ensure that you have an SSL certificate for your website.
Visit Dynamic Hosting to get a secure dedicated server for your business website and provide a seamless experience to your users.