Why & How to Secure Your Website with HTTPS Protocol

These days security is a priority when it comes to all of your websites and you should make sure that you are using the HTTPS protocol. This would ensure that you have the highest level of security on the site, which means that when the data is transmitted that is is encrypted as well as secure as it is being transferred. These days there are more and more reasons that you should ensure that your site is fully secure, especially if you are transferring sensitive data from your customers or payment related information. Here is everything you need to know about why you should be using this on your website and how to do it.

What is the SSL Certificate

In order to do this you would need to have an SSL certificate and you need to know what that is. SSL stands for secure sockets layer and they have been available to everyone for more than 20 years. Using an SSL simply makes sure that any sensitive data that is being transferred from one computer to another is done so over a network that is secure. Most people have not done this lately because it can be expensive and complex when it comes to implement, but it is becoming a necessity.

Is it Important to Have this Certificate?

Most people always ask if it is critical or important that this certificate is being used and the answer these days is yes. There are many reasons that you want to use this type of certificate, including:

• Increased security – When you use these certificates, then you can be assured that your data is being protected when anything is being transmitted. This type of information might include personal or payment information, addresses, signups or even your login information. These certificates would encrypt your connection and protect the data of your visitors from being used by any attackers.
• Subdomain safety – You can get a wildcard certificate that allows you to secure not only your main website but also all of the subdomains under it with a single certificate. This is is good if you have several subdomains under a larger one in your business. If you used the standard one, then you would have to do this for every single subdomain rather than all of them at once.
• Trust and credibility – When it comes to your customers when they see that you are secure, then it helps to build trust and credibility. They can see the padlock and that would help them to see that their information is going to be protected and they don’t need to worry about anything.

Ensure that you know the various reasons that getting this SSL certificate can help you and why it can help your customers put more trust in you and trust your credibility as well. If you are worried about and want to keep the data safe, then you should make sure to use one of these for your sites.

How to Get One

The next question that would come to everyone’s mind is how do you get this certificate? This is quite easy since you can simply ask your current provider for website hosting if they have any options. Earlier all of these certificates were paid features, but more and more providers are giving them to the customers for free. However, you can also bypass your provider and get one directly from Let’s Encrypt, which is one of the largest free providers of the SSL certificate.

How it Works

You might want to know just how this works and there are a few steps that you would have to do when it comes to setting it all up. There are plenty of steps and in order to complete these you would also need to have access to the server as well as the computer that you are trying to establish the connection with. These include:

• Establishing a secure line of communication between the browser and your server by using a handshake. This means that the browse is going to make a request to a URL, which starts the secure SSL connection.
• Server hello is when the server has received the request from the client and a copy of the servers SSL certificate along with their public key is sent.

• When this information is received by the client, then the browser must verify if it implicitly trusts this certificate and if it can be verified by one of the CAs or certificate authorities. If the certificate matches, then they accept it.

• A signed acknowledgment is then sent back by the server which allows for the client and the server to start their own encrypted SSL session that provides the authentication.

• Data can now be shared with full encryption and the keys that were created are used to decrypt as well as encrypt any of the data that is being sent back and forth.

 

These are the few steps that would allow your computer to communicate securely with your server without having to worry about it. This can be done by you, if you understand the process, but if not, then ask your IT department to do it or hire an expert to help you with this. Go ahead and ensure that everything is secure so that you don’t have to worry about it and neither does your client.

There are plenty of things that you need to think about when it comes to your site, including ensuring that it is completely secure. This is important for your customer because they can be sure that their data isn’t going to get compromised while it is being sent. Go ahead and pick the right type of SSL certificate that will work for your needs, especially if you have numerous subdomains under your main domain. You should always make sure that you know what you are doing and what needs to be done, so if you don’t know how to do it, then hire the best digital marketing agency.