Why do you need an SSL certificate
By: Sajjad Hussain
Tags: Technology, Tech, Ssl, HTML, Web

The Internet is a wonderful place to do business because it makes it easy for customers to find online businesses. However, websites need to transmit information securely. Some criminals hope to make quick money through data, putting others’ businesses and finances at risk. They can achieve their goals by intercepting communications between the website and their customers and implementing so-called man-in-the-middle attacks.

In recent years, these attacks have become more and more common, leading to an explosive increase in cybercrime. What is the growth we are talking about? According to data, there has been a significant increase in data breaches in 2017, from 1093 in 2016 to 1579 in 2017; an increase of 44% in one year! The statistics for 2018 may be even higher, because this trend continues to grow, let alone how high the data for 2020 will be. This can be scary, especially if you are not sure how to protect your business or customers from malicious hackers on the Internet. Fortunately, there is a solution that is both easy to implement and like a charm: SSL encryption. We will explain the most effective way to lock a website, and at the same time give ourselves some additional benefits, such as allowing the website to appear in more search results and improving security.

The importance of SSL certificates

How many people have really taken the time to understand what SSL digital certificates are and what do they do? If like most people, the answer may be that there are not so many.

SSL is an encryption protocol that encrypts the session information between the client and the server and makes it impossible for others who might try to eavesdrop or intercept it. This prevents external parties from reading any meaningful information from the intercepted traffic, and creates a comprehensive safe browsing experience for customers. Recently, browser updates, such as Google Chrome update 62, have begun to display warnings when visiting websites that are not running SSL. This will create a scary-looking prompt that denies access by default until the hidden “Continue” button is clicked. The “Continue” button can only be accessed after selecting the “ADVANCED” link.

This kind of deterrence highlights the change in security awareness of ordinary netizens. If users get news that the website is not secure, they are more likely to close the page. If it is your own website, you may have just lost another customer. These messages and tips may reduce website traffic, just because there is one more step to access the content, which will eventually lead to a loss of money.

To make matters worse, the absence of an SSL digital certificate means that the website’s ranking in Google will also be affected. Why do you say that? Because websites that start with the insecure “http” prefix will automatically rank lower than those with SSL, and these sites all start with “https”. Google does this to ensure that the safest search results appear higher in the list, while unsafe websites are pushed down or omitted altogether. If you have a mail server or any other Internet-facing service with confidential data, you must install an SSL certificate. This will prevent sensitive data from being intercepted or tampered with, give yourself peace of mind and increase security. For website security issues, please refer to the steps to prevent hacker attacks and improve website security.

Common misunderstandings about SSL certificates

In terms of general technology, people sometimes worry about switching to new things, and SSL certificates are a typical example. Other times, people hear the same misinformation over and over and then internalize it into facts. Here are some of the most common misconceptions people have about SSL certificates:

“Just install SSL on the login page”

This is wrong. Once you have logged in, if the landing page is not secure, hackers are more likely to hijack the session. Since they are logged in, they can already access the personal data. Encryption must be enabled on all pages so that the data stream will be 100% covered by SSL.

“Payment is not processed, so no SSL is required”

Some people think that they do not need an SSL certificate because they do not have an online payment portal. If you think that payment information such as credit card and bank information is the only data for cybercriminals and hackers, this logic makes sense, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. It turns out that seemingly innocuous information such as a simple email address can provide a clue to stubborn hackers who can try to log in using their login credentials as the username of another website. It only takes a piece of information to fall into the wrong hands to unlock the entire online security.

“SSL slows down websites”

Some people worry about the speed difference after implementing SSL, which is understandable. However, the good news is that for most users of modern browsers, the speed does not drop significantly because most pages load in exactly the same way as non-secure websites. If you host your own website, you can consider upgrading your web server to accommodate any increased performance load due to encryption, but this is unlikely to be a problem.

“SSL will take care of all security requirements”

Although the connection is encrypted and secure, it does not mean that the data being transmitted cannot be read on either end of the connection. If the web server is vulnerable to malware and virus attacks, or is invaded by rootkits or Trojan horse programs, an attacker who can access the web server can read information from the independent server itself, effectively avoiding the SSL security function.

The same is true for connections on the user side. If malware such as keylogger has been loaded on devices such as smartphones or laptops, data such as passwords and user names can be intercepted directly from the computer’s keyboard input, thereby rendering the SSL connection useless. This means that you need to ensure that the web server is updated and safe, without any malware or viruses. In addition, regardless of whether SSL is running or not, basic account and password precautions should always be followed. Make sure you never share your login information with anyone, and consider changing your password regularly.