#webserversecurity

Digital Certificate: A digital certificate is, pretty much, an identification card or you can say an electronic card that affirms or confirms the online transaction as well as another authentication on the internet. When we install a certificate, two keys are generated; one is a public key and another is a private key. People in general key is issued by Certification Authority (CA) on e-commerce sites, email, finance related sites or emails though Private Key is required to decrypt the data transferred or shared.

Purpose Of Digital Certificates

Security is the primary reason for these digital certificates. When we work online and sign in our details, make a financial transaction, security is the primary thing that comes into our mind. Before we share information, we check for the reliability of that website. However, how might we make certain that our information is exchanged safely? To build trust website owner opt for SSL certificate. To ensure information is exchanged safely when the SSL certificate is issued, two keys (Public and private) are issued alongside it. The public key is connected alongside the electronic message for security purposes. A digital certificate checks the client, whom she or he is professing to be and giving the message sent to the receiver alongside people in general key safely and with an approach to encoding a reply. The message sent is in encoded structure and once it achieves its goal, the private key is required to decrypt information in readable form. This encryption and decryption of information guarantee web security.

Importance Of Digital Certificate

Digital certificates are quite important; let us discuss them in details one by one:

• Communication Security: Digital certificate is attached along with e-mail or electronic message in order to provide security and authentication. When we communicate via electronic media, it becomes important that the information is shared between the parties it is meant for and cannot be accessed by any other third party. For such a secure communication we need a digital certificate, which ensures reliable communication.

• Online Banking: The internet has indeed made our life easier; instead of going to the bank for every single work, we can simply log in to the bank’s site and check our banking, make transactions, transfer money etc. Customers prefer the digital certificate issued by reputed CAs when we are dealing with the financial transition. These certificates ensure the user or customer a higher level of trust concerning the integrity of data, an additional level of protection and a higher level of security for data being shared or any financial transaction made.

• E-commerce: Most of the people in today’s world shop online due to their hectic lifestyle, but they always look for secure and reliable websites to shop as information provided by the customer is sensitive and can be misused. To create a safe and secure environment for customers to shop, a website owner needs an SSL certificate.

• Prevent Online Threats: To safeguard your data, which you provide at the time of login or when you sign-in, Certification Authority (CA) issues a public key, which monitors the receiver and sender in such a way that your information cannot be stolen by any other third party. The information shared can contain your address, birth date, locality, license etc.

If you are technically not very sound and do not understand most of the terms used, then this article is specially written for you. In this article, we will discuss SSL, TSL, SSL certificate, and HTTPS in detail, and in a language which is easy to understand.

SSL: In simple words, SSL is a technology which safeguards information, which is being transferred from one system to another from hackers or any other third party by creating an encrypted link between the two systems. This link has to be secured so that no hacker can misuse or modify the information or data. To achieve this kind of security, data has to be encrypted to make it impossible to read. With the help of this encrypted link, the data transferred between the browser and the server or, in some cases, one server to another remains safe and secured.

SSL Certificate: To get a secure connection or SSL connection between the browser and server, there is a need for SSL certificate. The information SSL Certificate carry is a domain name, company/organization name, and complete address along with the country name. Along with these details, additional information that the certificate contains is the date of expiration, which thoroughly depends upon the tenure you have opt for, and CA (Certification Authority) details. CA is the entity, which is responsible for issuing SSL Certificate

Whenever a browser makes a connection with the server, it checks the SSL certificate of that particular site and its expiration date. Along with this, the authenticity of the Certification Authority (CA) is also verified.

TLS: TLS stands for Transport Layer Security. It is similar to SSL but is more secure. In simple words, it is an updated version of SSL. However, SSL is the most commonly used term, so if you bought latest SSL and want to go for TLS instead, you don’t have to spend a single penny because most probably the latest SSL which you already have is actually a TLS certificate.