Why ssl certificate

Accessed Feb. What is an SSL certificate? Are all SSL certificates the same? There are many different types of SSL certificates based on the number of domain names or subdomains owned, such as: Single — secures one fully-qualified domain name or subdomain name Wildcard - covers one domain name and an unlimited number of its subdomains Multi-Domain — secures multiple domain names and the level of validation needed, such as: Domain Validation — this level is the least expensive, and covers basic encryption and verification of the ownership of the domain name registration.

This type of certificate usually takes a few minutes to several hours to receive. Organization Validation — in addition to basic encryption and verification of ownership of the domain name registration, certain details of the owner e. This type of certificate usually takes a few hours to several days to receive.

In addition to ownership of the domain name registration and entity authentication, the legal, physical and operational existence of the entity is verified. It has the highest level of security5 and is the easiest to identify. In order to issue an EV certificate, the CA performs an enhanced review of the applicant to increase the level of confidence in the business. The review process includes examination of corporate documents, confirmation of applicant identity, and checking the information with a third-party database.

Find out how your personal information will be used. Reputable companies should be open about the information they collect and what they do with it.

Look for trust indicators on shopping sites. Reputable logos or badges signify that the website meets certain security standards. Understand the type of SSL certificate a website holds.

As a first step, look for visual cues indicating security, such as a lock symbol and green color in the address bar. Only EV-enabled websites include the company name in the web address bar. Only conduct transactions and provide personal data to sites with OV or EV certificates. If you drop a URL into the Norton Safe Web tool and it reports that the site has a DV certificate, rethink conducting any type of transaction through that site.

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They also:. Browsers, operating systems, and mobile devices maintain lists of trusted CA root certificates. The Root Certificate must be present on the end user's machine in order for the Certificate to be trusted. If it is not trusted the browser will present untrusted error messages to the end user. In the case of e-commerce, such error messages result in immediate lack of confidence in the website and organizations risk losing confidence and business from consumers.

Companies like GlobalSign are known as trusted Certificate Authorities. This is because browser and operating system vendors such as Microsoft, Mozilla, Opera, Blackberry, Java, etc. The more applications, devices and browsers the Certificate Authority embeds its Root into, the better "recognition" the SSL Certificate can provide. GlobalSign was founded in in Europe and remains one of the longest running Certificate Authorities in the region.