SSL CERTIFICATES:

SSL stands for 'Secure Sockets Layer'. It was created by Netscape Communications. It is a data encryption technology which was created in the mid 90's and has been adopted as teh leading protocol to successfully encrypt the transmission of data to and from millions of ecommerce websites on the internet.



* SSL certificates establish trust between you and your customers.

* They prove to the customers that you take their business seriously enough to protect their sensitive information such as credit card numbers, social security numbers, licenses and passwords.

* You make sure that all pages with private information on them that are protected by an ssl certificate run with HTTPS:// instead of HTTP:// in your browser, and displays a lock icon.

* It shows your customers that you comply with security and privacy requirements laid down by credit card companies processing your transactions.



You can show your customers that you have an SSL certificate active on your website by showing a 'site seal'. This also ensures that anyone can verify the security of your computer.



The benefits of an SSL certificate are:

* It halts tampering with or changing the data in the communications to and from the website.

* Stops capturing information to and from your website.

* Blocks the substitution of bogus/forged communications being inserted into transmissions of data to or from your website.



SSL certificates should be issued by an SSL certificate authority. The authority keeps track of all the necessary information that the ssl certificate is based on and authenticates the identity of the certificate owner.



You must fill out all the certificate information to get an SSL certificate. This includes the domain name the certificate will be running on, the company name, address, city, state and country. The public key's information is needed for a certificate signing request in order to validate the installation of the ssl certificate on the web server of your domain. This key is installed on your web server to match the information contained within it to any request coming in and ensuring that the data transmissions are encrypted to and from your website.



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About the author:
Tanya Smith is an expert on private domain registration and web hosting at Ballistic Domains, USA. Ballistic Domains provides domain name registration, domain transfer, domain parking, dedicated web hosting and related services.