Wondering why do we need SSL certificate for our website, here's the answer..!

       

   SSL(Secure Socket Layer) certificate is nothing but the 128- bit encryption, the method of securing your website for your valuable customers.  A large percentage of internet users leave websites when asked to provide any information about themselves, simply because the website was not a secure website.

Security and SSL certificate

There is no better way of building users' trust than by enabling SSL and getting it installed for your website.

If you are transmitting sensitive information on a website, such as credit card numbers or personal information, you need to secure it with SSL Encryption. 

It is possible for others ( I call them, hackers) to see every piece of data unless it is secured by an SSL certificate.
Thinking from a customer's perspective, I will always choose to browse a site or purchase from it only if it keeps my account information safe.
Now returning back to answering your question, To find out if you need an SSL certificate for your site or not.

Now let's focus on these points:

• Is my site an e-commerce site that collects credit card information from its customers?

Frankly speaking, if your answer is yes, then HURRY..! you might be loosing a valuable customer right this second! More and more customers are becoming online shoppers and won’t buy from you if you don’t have an SSL certificate installed.

Your customers are providing you with very important and personal information that allows access to their hard earned money. If an identity thief gets access to your customer’s credit card information because you didn’t take the necessary precautions, it can be devastating to you and to your customers.

• Do I use a 3rd party payment processor?

This is very easy if you forward your customers to a third party payment processor (eg. PayPal) then it's not mandatory to get the SSL certificate installation. Still, security has its prime value and there is no loss in a little extra precaution.

Here you have to know it for certain that you or your site has no payment authentication, you just redirect your customers to the third party. The address bar should not display your domain registration name on the payment gateway page.

But on the other hand, if you accept the credit card information on your site itself, you definitely need an SSL certificate. There is no negotiation on this point.

• Do I have a login form?

Login form where you ask your customers to enter their username and password to log-in to a specific page, and when you are not using an SSL certificate, any attacker can hack their password. It is well known that users have same passwords for different accounts, thus an attacker can potentially compromise many other accounts.

If you let people store a password with you, you must take responsibility for protecting it, even if the security of your own site isn't critical.

• Where do I purchase an SSL certificate?

Great! So you’re now sure that you need SSL for your e-commerce or another type of site. How do you know what type of certificate to purchase?

All the SSL certificates provide you with the security of the confidential information, by providing you with 128-bit encryption and 256 bit SSL encryption strength.  It secures your domain name from any potential threat. over the years the use of SSL certificate has dramatically increased. Some companies simply need SSL for confidentiality i.e encryption. And some others need it to grow their customers trust them.

You can check SSL certificate feature and pricing for more details.

Purchasing of SSL depends on your business requirement.

1. Extended Validation certificate:

Validation has simple meaning that your SSL provider does a background check on your company, it validates the following things:

• Verifying the legal, physical and operational existence of the entity.
• Verifying that the identity of the entity matches official records.
• Verifying that the entity has exclusive right to use the domain specified in the EV SSL   Certificate (Extended validation)
• Verifying that the entity has properly authorized the issuance of the EV SSL Certificate.

                    If you have business sites with number of domains, or You are an E-commerce site and while your users enter a username and password to access your site, and you accept card payments, in this scenario you need the highest security level SSL, it's called the extended SSL certificate it gives a green bar to you web address. Yeah, customers notice that green bar, trust me!

2. Organizational SSL Certificate:

•  Where the certificate authority checks right of the applicant to use a specific domain name also it conducts some examination of the organization.

• Many business sites have the requirement of single SSL certificate to all of their subdomains (eg. info., systems.), for this, they can use wildcard SSL or say shared SSL service, it's provided in the organizational SSL certificate category.

• Shared SSL can be used to avoid the need for purchasing an SSL certificate. The shared certificate does not use your domain name. The server host name is used in addition to the cPanel username to allow a secure connection to happen.

3. The AplhaSSL and DomainSSL: 

•  Are the basic and powerful SSL certificates. Where the CA(certificate authority) checks the right of the applicant to use a specific domain name.

•  No company identity information is vetted and no information is displayed other than encryption information within the Secure Site Seal. It can be used as per your business requirement.

•   It's on you to decide to have an SSL certificate or not, but after knowing that the internet is continuously battling with security threats it's wiser to go with a security protection option rather running without any. Because it's our service that matters in the business most. 

               If you are satisfied with the above answer do not forget to leave a reply,  in the case of any doubts or queries feel free to ask.

 -P.S