SSL Certificates

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is protocol, which allows encryption of data on the Internet and helps users to be sure about the owner of a website. SSL is mostly used to protect communication between web browsers and servers.

Issuing of all SSL certificates is done automatically and takes up to 1 hour, except Geotrust True BusinessID With EV, which can take from 1 to 10 days, because of validation procedures.

Before issuing a SSL certificate, must be confirmed that you own the domain name by sending an email to the administrator referred to the domain registrar.

Encryption is a mathematical process of encoding and decoding of information. The number of bits (40-bit, 56-bit, 128-bit, 256-bit) tells you the size of the key. Just as passwords the longer key means more combinations.

When web browser connects to a secure site, it retrieves the SSL certificate from the site, verifying that the SSL certificate has not expired, has been issued by an authorized certifying authority that the browser trusts and is used by the web site which has been issued for. If any of these checks fail to complete, the web browser will display a warning to the end user. If the checks succeed there are several indicators of security, that are built into the modern browsers and indicate that SSL is included:

- the beginning of the web address changes from http:// to https://
- the lock in the browser window is changed from open to closed
- address bar turns green and displays the name of the owner of the website if it is protected by Extended Validation SSL certificate

When a web browser or operating system meet an SSL certificate, is checked to ensure that the SSL certificate is valid and reliable. An SSL certificate is trusted if signed by "trustful" or pre-installed root certificate. If your browser does not contain the main CA certificate used to issue SSL certificate, you will get a warning.