Simplification of key management and maintenance. The addition of SSL acceleration and offloading devices to e-commerce and other secure Web sites results in increased transaction processing speeds. But because the devices are installed as appliances on networks, data is unsecured between the devices and secure servers. Installing an SSL off-loading device as a PCI expansion card directly in a secure server ensures the security of the connection from browser to server.
Secure transactions are a necessity with e-commerce and sensitive corporate intranets and extranets.
While many security standards are in place, SSL is the most common. The SSL standard is not a single protocol, but rather a set of accepted data transfer routines that are designed to protect the integrity of transmitted messages. Certificates include the name of the certificate authority that issued the certificate, the name of the entity to which the certificate was issued, the entity's public key, and time stamps that indicate the certificate's expiration date. Two types of keys are used as ciphers to encrypt and decrypt data. Private keys are issued to entities and are never given out.