E-commerce is an online business wherein vendors and clients deal together virtually without meeting. The clients/visitors are required to make online transactions (generally via credit cards), thus security is important.
In order to gain their trust and confidence, E-commerce websites needs to be secured, via SSL certificates.
SSL Definition (Web server certificates/ Secure Server Certificates/SSL Certificates)
A protocol developed by Netscape, introduced in 1994.
SSL has been the
de facto standard for e-commerce transaction security,
Web standard for encrypting communications between users and SSL enabled sites.
They require to initialize an SSL session, used on:
• Web Servers for Internet security
• Mail Servers (IMAP, POP3, SMTP) for mail transaction security.
Features of SSL
- Based on encryption, encrypts data (credit cards numbers) and sends it to the receiving Web site.
- Proves security and integrity and ownership of the website, uses 128-bit (present standard) or 40-bit encryption (256 bit coming)
- Prevents eavesdropping, hacking of information, thus businesses and consumers are assured of security of private data sent to a Web site
-
SSL secured sites URL -
https://www.site.ext
Non secure sites URL -
http://www.site.ext
- On SSL connection, a little gold padlock icon is seen at bottom of web-page, which contains information about certificate holder such as domain to which the certificate was issued to, name of Certificate Authority (CA) who issued the certificate, the root and country it was issued in. (As well described by Manny, in the
http://forum.affiliatebot.com/showthread.php?t=1250)
- Another protocol for secure transmission of data:
Secure HTTP (S-HTTP) - transmits individual messages securely. Thus, both complement each other.