Basic Steps to Allow You To Pick the Right SSL Certificate Provider

As you know, the incidence of online fraud is constantly increasing. The reason is that everyday, businesses are optiong to go for online solutions..Culprits can easily sniff out and retrieve unprotected information transmitted across the internet. Personal information, banking information, and credit card numbers may easily fall into the wrong hands, potentially hurting both the customer and the online merchant.

Fortunately, a way to ensure secure transactions between a server like a merchant website and a browser has been invented. It's called the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol. Experts will tell you that SSL is the most effective way to secure oline transactions.

How Does SSL Work?

An SSL certificate contains a public encryption key, the name of the certificate provider, and the name of the certificate owner. The server sends this certificate to a requesting browser. The browser then contacts the certificate provider and verifies two things. First is whether the owner named really owns the certificate. Second is if the certificate is currently valid or revoked. If it checks out, all outgoing message will be encrypted by the browser using the public encryption key in the certificate. Only the server, by using its private decryption key, can decrypt the message.

SSL certificate providers are trusted companies that sell SSL certificates. Before giving out a certificate, they make sure that the applicant really is who it claims to be. If an applicant does get a certificate, the SSL certificate provider keeps a record of the applicant's information and certificate status (active or revoked).

How to Shop for SSL Certificate Providers

The most important feature to look for in providers is security. The term "encryption strength" is used in the SSL industry when referring to the security of the connection. It is measured by the total of bits in the key used to decode the encryption. You should go for at least 128 bits, though 256 bits is recommended if your budget allows it. A 128-bit key has 2128 possible combinations to the key. 256-bit keys have 2256 combinations, a number deemed almost impossible to crack even by brute-force attacks.

The next feature that you should always have in mind is broswer recognition. Every web browser has a list of SSL certificate providers that it recognizes by default. Certificates issued by providers that are not in the list will warrant a message from the browser warning users that the SSL certificate did not come from a recognized provider. In many cases, this warning scares away potential customers from merchant websites. "Browser ubiquity" is the term used to refer to browser recognition. SSL certificate providers wil low ubiquity are not recognized by default by most browsers. 99% ubiquity is the minimum standard nowadays. In other words, default recognition by 99% of all web browsers.

Browser indication is also important, especially to commercial websites. It’s always a good idea to let the customer know that an online transaction is being done under the cloak of SSL security. Most SSl certificate providers do this by turning the web browser's address bar green. Some will even give a smal clickable logo that links to the provider's website. There, the customers can verify for themselves that the website they are viewing is using SSL security.

Many SSL certificate providers offer numerous other features like automatic renewals and malware scans, but finding the perfect one shouldn’t be too difficult if you keep these tips in mind