Certain people and companies need to have their data encrypted with SSL at all times. This includes websites that collect sensitive personal information on visitors, as well as businesses that exchange or store sensitive information such as credit card details. SSL may also be required for email connections between business partners or social media platforms.
Your business security depends on the SSL protocol. With its encryption and authentication, SSL secures all business communication – from customer data to financial data and everything in between.
SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is a protocol that allows you to encrypt information sent via any IP address, TCP port or UDP port. In short, it protects the transmission of data between you and your websites or applications from eavesdroppers and attackers. Your connection will appear as secure to anyone using an SSL-enabled web browser to view the pages you send them.
Your website is the most important part of any marketing strategy. It’s where your business lives and breathes, but it should also be the most secure. Every day, more and more customers are shopping online, so they want confidence that they are getting their information from a secure site. With an SSL certificate, you can offer that reassurance to your customers in every way possible: on your domain name and on every page of your site.
What does a wildcard SSL certificate do?
A wildcard SSL certificate is a single purchase that contains multiple names. A wildcard SSL certificate lets you generate multiple authorization for different subdomains, allowing you to assign a single code point to multiple names.
A wildcard SSL certificate lets you use one of the certificate’s names and addresses as the subject name of your certificate, so you don’t have to remember or type the right name for each site.
This certificate can be used to secure multiple subdomains and websites. If you need this, our wildcard SSL certificates will give you access to all subdomains and other websites.
Is a wildcard SSL certificate the same as an SSL certificate?
Wildcard Certificate is a security certificate that allows its owner to use multiple subdomains of the same domain behind a single IP address. Wildcard certificates are used to secure all subdomains of the main domain.
Wildcard SSL certificates allow you to use the same domain certificate on multiple websites or servers.
While wildcard certificates have the ability to replace all subdomains, such as *.example.com, they cannot replace the root domain. With a full domain wildcard certificate, only the first level domain will work. For example, if you wanted to run Route53 with a wildcard SSL certificate you would need to purchase a single domain wildcard certificate and apply it for your entire hostname.
Types of SSL Certificates
There are three primary categories of SSL certificates: Domain Validated (DV) certificates, Organization Validated (OV) Certificates, and Extended Validation (EV) certificates.
Domain Validated Certificates: Quick and Easy
Domain Validation (DV) Certificates require that the issuing authority validate only that the applicant owns or controls the domain name listed in the certificate. In most cases this requires that a responsible party at the domain name receive an email or visit some predetermined web pages on the domain to approve issuance of an SSL Certificate. If a third party is available to receive emails, email delivery acceptance speeds up this process.
This validation process is quick and typically results in an immediate issuance of the SSL Certificate after all requirements are met. These factors make them ideal for businesses just starting out or companies with limited budgets offering basic assurance that customer data is transmitted securely over HTTPS and SNI Enabled browsers through secure 256-bit encryption. Customers who order DV Certificates tend to be corporate websites and small business owners who don’t require any additional information beyond ownership confirmation before issuing an SSL Certificate.
Organization Validated Certificates: Extra assurance option
Organizational validated (OV) certificates provide extra assurance when compared to DV certificates since they require further authentication that includes verifying information like business identity, telephone number, address as well as other company data via public record databases such as Dun & Bradstreet Corporate database before they’re issued. As a result, OV certificates offer more confidence than DV by giving website visitors access to basic business information such as location address or phone numbers when customers click on the site seal associated with compliant OV certificate holders
Extended Validation Certificates: Higher level price – but also higher trust level
The highest assurance available in today’s digital world is called Extended Validation (EV). For EV linked sites browsing under supported compliant browsers users experience immediate visual changes alongside added confidence when transacting online during checkout processes such as payment processing where instant browser bar colour change from grey status bar to green signals bona fide website veracity quickly removing any doubts from consumers minds — conveying razor sharp focus meets strong trust level authorization from a distant issuer yet powerful enough to instill site identity confirmation immediately at first sight visuals!
How to Get an SSL Certificate
Getting an SSL Certificate involves several steps, including:
- Selecting an appropriate type of certificate: Organizations will typically use either a Wildcard Certificate or multiple domains/subdomains for protecting portioned areas within their website infrastructure;
- Generating the Certificate-Signing Request (CSR): If needed, you may need to generate a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) for submitting and activating the SSL certificate;
- Installing your domain authentication and verifying domain ownership: Depending on where you’re purchasing your SSL certificate from, this will require obtaining authorization from the domain name registrar;
- Completing additional security requirements: Some providers might require additional validation steps such as validating contact information before they are willing to issue the final SSL Certificate;
- Installing your signed certificate on servers/computers: Once all of these steps are complete, the next step is to install applicable certificates with corresponding private key onto web servers/computers;
- Finalizing configuration assessments and checks: Finally, make sure all clients are properly configured with appropriate client authentication settings related to certificates with corresponding private key on web servers/computers prior to making any changes publically available on Internet-connected environment(s).
Conclusion
As a webmaster or business owner, it’s essential to ensure that your website has a valid SSL certificate in place if you do not already have one. Not only will this help protect your customer’s data, but it can also help increase customer trust and potentially boost sales by providing them with a more secure shopping experience. Furthermore, as more and more browsers switch to an HTTPS-only version of their platform, having an SSL certificate will become even more important.
