SSL, an abbreviation of 'Secure Sockets Layer' is a data encryption

technology created by Netscape Communications in the mid 90's that has

been adopted as the leading protocol to successfully encrypt the

transmission of data to and from millions of ecommerce websites on the

Internet.

Why do you need an SSL Certificate?

- It establishes trust between you and your customers.

- It shows 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.

- You comply with security and privacy requirements laid down by credit

card companies processing your transactions.

- You show a 'site seal' for your ssl certificate demonstrating that an

ssl certificate is active on your website and that anyone can verify

the security of your website.

Having an SSL certificate to encrypt communications on your website,

effectively;

- Halts tampering with or changing the data contained in communications

to and from your website.

- Stops listening in and capturing sensitive 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 need to be issued by an SSL Certificate Authority.

This is usually a company that keeps track of the necessary information

that the ssl certificate is based on and authenticates the identity of

the ssl certificates owner.

In order to get an ssl certificate you must fill out all certificate

information requested including the domain name the ssl certificate

will be running on along with company name, address, city, state and

country. The certification authority verifies that the person who is

making the request for an ssl certificate on a domain is entitled to do

so. For this the certificate authority sends out an email message to

the owner of the domain name (administrative contact) whose details are

stored in the whois database. When that email is replied to authorizing

a new ssl certificate to be created, the certificate authority issues a

public encryption key and a private encryption key to the new ssl

certificate owner.

The public key's information is used for a Certificate Signing Request

(CSR) to validate the installation of the ssl certificate on the web

server your domain (and website) is hosted on. The private key is

installed on your webserver to match information contained within it to

any request coming in and ensuring that data tranmissions are encrypted

to and from your website with the web browser accessing your website.

SSL Certificates from Ballistic Domains are very affordable, offer

industry standard 256 bit encryption, and can be issued in minutes.

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