What Exactly is SSL?
First things first — what is SSL, precisely? “SSL” is short for Secure Sockets Layer. In plain terms, it’s how businesses communicate with customers so they can peruse, buy goods or services, and share information safely with you online. Without getting overly technical, adding an SSL creates a safe connection for those kinds of activities.
A Website Windshield
Think of an SSL certificate as a large windshield for driving on the information super-highway. You wouldn’t head out on your local freeway — or especially at night on a country road — without something between you and all the bugs. In much the same way, an SSL certificate protects your site — and its visitors — from many digital bugs, worms, and other nasty web creatures.
Avoidance by Obscurity
Before dismissing your site as “too small to be a target,” keep in mind that most attacks are done electronically without a human deciding who is targeted. No site is too small to get hacked. Malware doesn’t care how big you are or what you do for a living. They have one goal, and that is to find vulnerabilities. Once discovered, the dirty work begins.
How an SSL Functions
An SSL certificate attempts to make a secure link between your guest’s program and the server. A protected session is set up through a “handshake” process, one that includes forward and backward communication between the internet browser and the web server, and it happens in the background — all without interfering with the shopping or perusing of information.
An SSL to ensures no data passes unencrypted between the server and browser.
Here’s an important question: Does your site require an SSL certificate? Starting in July 2018, Google Chrome will stamp a website as “Not Secure” if it isn’t protected with an SSL certificate. Google will also rank your site lower – a much more concerning aspect of the SSL certificate functionality. Either way, it is vital if you gather information or acknowledge installments.
A noteworthy reason you should need to add an SSL authentication to your site is if any of your pages are password protected. Password protection includes WordPress, Joomla, or other database-driven sites with a login page for the administrator.
Membership sites with different logins likewise create more potential vulnerabilities for black hat hackers to attack.
Keep in mind that, anything that should be secure online needs to work under the protection of an SSL certificate.
The web is crawling with bots hiding around looking for inadequately secured passwords and flawed programming to give them access to your site. No one wants to check their website and discover it’s damaged, erased, or is a malware distribution point.
Not every company gathers payments on the web. Some sites gather data. These could be leads for potential home purchasers. Or surveys about your customer’s business history. Or anything. On the off chance that you are gathering even the most fundamental data, for example, name, address, telephone number and email address, odds are your customers would not want that data stolen.
Without an SSL certificate, form data can be intercepted. Some code is more dependable than others. Would you like to take risks that yours is resistant to hacking?
Presumably not.
The above reasons for securing your online business with an SSL certificate are now an absolute requirement. You wouldn’t work with somebody who skirted this progression. Try not to give anybody this as a reason not to work with you.
