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SSL Certificates
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SSL Certificates - Secure eCommerce
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SSL Certificates to secure your servers and assure customers their data
is protected.
Quick Validation SSL Certificates
Quick Validation SSL certificates ensure that information is encrypted
between parties. The owner of the certificate is verified via an email to
a contact listed in the domain's WHOIS information. This helps ensure that
the certificate is valid. A Quick Validation certificate ensures that your
data is transferred with the secure encryption technology.
GeoTrust Quick SSL
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GeoTrust Quick SSL Premium
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Full Validation SSL Certificates
Full Validation SSL certificates also encrypt data sent between two parties
with the same encryption technology. In addition to verifying an email to
the WHOIS contacts, Full Validation certificates verify that the certificate
owner is a legal entity. Verifiable legal entities can be either a business
or an individual. Full validation certificates therefore help ensure that
data is securely sent over the Internet to a trusted entity.
GeoTrust True BusinessID
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GeoTrust True BusinessID Wildcard
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Extended Validation SSL Certificates
GeoTrust True BusinessID with EV
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What are SSL and Digital Certificates?
Secure Socket Layer (SSL) is a protocol developed by Netscape in 1996 which quickly
became the method of choice for securing data transmissions across the Internet.
SSL is an integral part of most Web browsers and Web servers and makes use of the
public-and-private key encryption system developed by Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman.
In order to make an SSL connection, the SSL protocol requires that a server should
have a digital certificate installed. A digital certificate is an electronic file
that uniquely identifies individuals and servers. Digital certificates serve as
a kind of digital passport or credential which authenticate the server prior to
the SSL session being established.
Typically, digital certificates are signed by an independent and trusted third
party to ensure their validity. The "signer" of a certificate is known as a Certification
Authority (CA), such as VeriSign, thawte and GeoTrust.
When should SSL be used and what can it secure?
There are several main online security problems that SSL certificates help solve:
- Authentication - proving a company's (or server's) identity online and in
so doing create a sense of trust and confidence in using a Web site.
- Encryption - offering protection for the data submitted to a Web site (or
between servers) so that in the event of interception, it will be unintelligible
without the unique key used for decryption. Solving these security problems
allows online business to protect against the following scenarios:
- Spoofing - The low cost of Web site design and ease with which existing
pages can be copied makes it all too easy to create illegitimate sites that
appear to be published by established organizations. In fact, con artists have
illegally obtained credit card numbers by setting up professional-looking storefronts
that mimic legitimate businesses.
- Unauthorized Disclosure - when information is transmitted "in the clear",
making it possible for hackers to intercept the transmissions and obtain sensitive
information from customers.
- Data alteration - the content of a transaction can be intercepted and altered
en route, either maliciously or accidentally. User names, credit card, and social
security numbers as well as currency amounts; indeed any information sent "in
the clear" is all vulnerable to alteration.
So what are the practical applications of SSL certificates?
Firstly, looking at categories of data, the most common deployment is for securing
transmission of financial information in ecommerce. However, with incidence of identity
theft on the rise, protecting the transmission of a broad range of personally-identifiable
information is becoming ever more important. This category of data would include
identity and social security numbers, e-mail addresses and demographic information
as well as account registration and login information.
In terms of applications and protocols, SSL Certificates can be used to secure
the following:
- Web Servers
- Mail Servers
- Databases
- FTP Sites
- Internet Chat
- NNTP
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