Ssl Certificates – What are They All About?!
February 19, 2010 by Bendigo Web Hosting
Filed under SSL Certificates
When it comes to having an online store or even a web application that holds sensitive user information, in order to attract and retain customers you need to give off a certain air of trustworthiness. Gaining the trust of your online customers is vital to the success of e-commerce. There are multitudes of ways to do this, including having all contact information readily available to the user, testimonials, recommendations from other sites, etc. One of the most important ways, though, can often be overlooked. In fact, most of us aren’t even aware this particular way exists.
I’m talking about Security Sockets Layer (SSL) technology. You may have heard of SSL certificates. But what do they actually do?
In a nutshell, SSL certificates enable the encryption of sensitive information like passwords, credit card numbers and dates of birth, they provide a unique ‘signature’ for each owner which contains authenticated information about that owner, and they are issued by a reputable authority in the SSL market, much like your driver’s license or passport are issued by trusted third parties.
Let’s have an example: When Barbara is shopping for dog beds online, she comes across www.queeniesdogbeds.com, a boutique style online store. Queenie’s Dog Beds has been smart enough to acquire an SSL certificate. What this means for the end user is assurance that their details and other communications between their web browser and the online store are safe and secure. How does an SSL certificate actually work though? It’s quite simple. When Barbara accesses Queenie’s Dog Beds online, her web browser asks the web server whether it has an SSL certificate to offer. If it does, it sends it to Barbara’s web browser which in turn verifies the details of the certificate with a trusted authority such as VeriSign. If VeriSIgn confirms that the details on the certificate are authentic, a SSL connection is established between Barbara’s computer and the online store resulting in the encryption of all communications between the two parties.
These communications between Barbara’s computer and queeniesdogbeds.com may involve registering private information such as names and addresses or purchasing a product online using a credit card. Either way, this is all information that Barbara doesn’t want just anyone seeing, and thanks to an SSL certificate, the information is now protected and Barbara is happy to find a trustworthy dog bed stockist online!
So how do your customers know your site is secure? Well, we all recognize that small locked padlock in the bottom right-hand corner of our browser. That’s exactly what that’s about! That tiny symbol is telling you (or your customers) that the site you’re visiting is safe to use because it has been secured with an SSL certificate. The padlock isn’t always interpreted that way. Most users don’t realize this has anything to do with SSL certificates, but at the end of the day they know that the padlock equals safe.
According to VeriSign, a well-known supplier of SSL certificates, 87% of online shoppers are concerned by credit card fraud, 85% of online shoppers are concerned about identity theft, 83% are concerned about sharing personal information, and 77% of online shoppers are concerned about spyware. Whilst they’re all concerned about something different, that is A LOT of online shoppers who are all looking for one thing: somewhere SECURE and somewhere SAFE to buy their products from on the web. Are they going to feel safe when using your online store?
Marnie is one half of the creative team at Bergan Blue, an Australian based creative design firm focused on bridging the gap between the online world of the Internet with the offline world of Marketing. Please visit http://www.berganblue.com.au/ for more information.
