What is SSL Certificate & Its Types [Updated Guide]
You already heard about SSL certificates. However, here, we will shed light on – What is an SSL certificate and its types in a detailed manner. Let’s begin!
Websites transmit a lot of essential or data-sensitive information to the visitor’s browser and vice-versa.
Just recall what you share via the internet every day – login credentials, transaction details, confidential documents, etc. That’s a considerable amount of information that you don’t want falling into the hands of having wrong intentions.
So to keep data transmission between the client and the server protected, that’s when SSL Certificates come into play.
What is an SSL Certificate?
Secure Socket Layer helps establish a safe link or passage between your web server and visitors’ browser. It ensures that all the data transfers between the two will remain secure, and no one can breach the data during the transmission. In addition, Secure Socket Layer provides SSL encryption that prevents hackers from stealing confidential information such as credentials.
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Today, most of the website’s URL begins with “https://” which means the website is secure and only because of the SSL certificate.
HTTP + SSL = HTTPS
SSL adds end-to-end encryption to make a website secure for the communication between the client and the server.
SSL certificates or Digital certificates are the data files containing cryptographic keys and the domain’s details. An organization needs to install the SSL certificate onto its web server to ensure a secure connection with the client’s browser.
The keys attached to the SSL certificate are used to encrypt and decrypt the data. If the data gets encrypted using the public, it can only be decrypted by the private key and vice-versa.
Certificate Authority (CA) is a trusted third-party that generates and issues certificates for websites. There are a variety of SSL certificates available. It is essential to understand each one of them to know which to install.
Key Benefits of SSL Certificate Security
SSL is the backbone of secure internet that protects the sensitive information transferred over the world’s network. Therefore, installing an SSL Certificate to protect your website even if it contains no sensitive information is essential. SSL Certs provide privacy and maintains data integrity for both the client and the server.
An SSL Certificate Contains: –
- Encrypts sensitive information
- Provides Authentication
- Encryption: The primary reason to use SSL is to protect sensitive information sent over the Internet in encrypted form so that the intended recipients can only accept it. The data transmitted on the Internet is passed through many networks to get to the destination server. Any malicious user in between can see your sensitive information if it is not encrypted with an SSL certificate. When an SSL certificate is used, the sent data becomes unreadable to everyone except for the intended server.
- Authentication: In addition to encryption, an SSL certificate also authenticates the applicants. You can be sure that you are sending information to the authenticated server and not to a masquerader trying to steal your data as the data sent over the Internet reaches the destination server by passing through several networks. Chances of phishing attacks are very high as any of the devices of these networks could pretend to be your website and trick your users into sending their personal information. The data breaching can only avoid by getting an SSL Certificate from a trusted SSL provider Like NetForChoice. Trusted SSL providers will only issue an SSL certificate after verifying the applicant organization.
Types of SSL Certificates
With increasing Cyber Crimes at a rapid speed, it is crucial to be aware of all the SSL validations and choose an appropriate type of SSL certificate for your organization.
- Single Domain SSL Certificates: A single-domain SSL certificate can only authenticate one domain. All the pages under this domain with the certificate cannot be applied to the website’s subdomains. These certs are helpful for small to medium-sized organizations with a limited number of domains seeking inexpensive security solutions.
- Wildcard SSL Certificates: Wildcard SSL certs are used to authenticate a single domain and all its subdomains. Instead of using separate SSL Certificates, you can use a single certificate to validate all the subdomains under the main domain.
- Multi-domain SSL Certificates: Multi-domain secures multiple domains and subdomains that are hosted on the same server and are unrelated to each other. Multi-domain certificates provide an appropriate option for organizations looking for numerous domain names security without managing multiple certificates.
After understanding what SSL certificates are and their types, let’s have an overview of SSL validation.
SSL Certificate Validation Levels
Before issuing the SSL certificates to the organizations, Certificate Authorities must validate the identities of the applicant. If the validation procedure is not there, we would have no idea whether the webserver we are communicating with is secure or not. Multiple validation levels are there, ranging from minimum verification to a detailed background investigation of the organization.
- Domain SSL Validation: Domain validation is the lowest level of verification. In this level, the Certificate Authority only verifies whether the organization has control over the domain name. Organizations can achieve this by altering the records in the Domain Name Server associated with the domain name or just by sending an email to the CA. Domain Validation is the cheapest validation strategy among all. As no human involvement is there, it is easy to automate this process.
- Organization SSL Validation: This validation is more trustworthy than domain validation. As the name suggests, the verification takes place at the organization level, too means the CA contacts the organization requesting the certificate to check if it’s a legitimate request or a malicious third-party is requesting the certificate.
- Extended Validation: This is the most strict level of validation that involves detailed background verification. The CA is required to investigate thoroughly that consists in checking if the organization exists as a legally registered entity or not, their physical address is the same as the one they are claiming, and so on. This level is the most expensive and more time-consuming.
TThat’s all about what is SSL certificates and their types. If you are looking for SSL certificates for your website to make sure to fill this form and tell us which SSL certificate you require.
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