What is an SSL Certificate?

First of all, what is SSL? It is short for Secure Sockets Layer. In simple words and without getting into too many technical details, adding an SSL certificate makes the connection more secure and much safer when you browse, buy, and communicate online.

Initially, a secure session is established via a “handshake,” an automated process of negotiation between the server and your browser. Your data is being encrypted in a way that only the intended recipient can understand it. This is all very important because the information being sent through the web is being passed on to different servers. All your data would be very easy to steal (passwords, credit card numbers, etc.) if it is not encrypted with an SSL certificate.

You might think that your site is relatively small and no one would want to attack it, and you would be wrong. Every website on the Internet is a potential target for hackers. Additionally, most web attacks lately are being made by bots and not real humans. A web crawler will search for known vulnerabilities, and if one is found, it will attack it. All this happens behind the scenes, and the user experience is not being harmed in any way.

Why do you need an SSL Certificate?

Some of the main reasons why you would want to add an SSL certificate to your website are:

Online payments security

If your website accepts credit cards and stores that information online, you will be required to use SSL by the credit card companies and, in some cases – by the hosting providers. Also, you would not want someone to steal all your user’s credit cards, right?

Secure the login process and web forms

Protecting the username and password and all the data a user enters when browsing through your website is vital as it could be intercepted and used by third parties.

Search engine rankings

Back in 2013, Google announced that pages using SLL certificates would be ranked higher. Later other search engines like Yahoo and Bing included website security in their ranking algorithm as well.

Users' security

Your users will feel more secure when using your site. Gaining your customers’ trust is very important. Your site visitors will feel safer and will know that whatever information they enter will be securely passed to your server.

How can WebSitePulse help you?

To check if your website is susceptible to known vulnerabilities, you can use our Network Vulnerability Monitoring.  It will scan your servers and firewalls for more than 60,000 known security exploits and issues. We will then provide you with a detailed report and suggestions for making your system more secure.

SSL Certificate monitoring -  our monitoring agent will download the SSL certificate from your server and test its configuration, expiration, and validity. Both OCSP (Online Certificate Status Protocol) and CRL (Certificate Revocation List) verifications will be performed. You can also use our free SSL Certificate Checker.

Final thoughts

We live in times where web attacks happen daily, and companies lose money and their customers due to that. You can never be too safe when it comes to web security. The use of SSL certificates is next to mandatory, especially when dealing with people’s login credentials, credit cards, and personal information. Once your SSL certificate has been set up, you can use our tools to ensure that it is working correctly and that your website is secured.