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 What is a SSL Certificate? How do SSL certificates work?

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Category: Cybersecurity PRISM

What is a SSL Certificate?

 
An Secure Sockets Layer (SLL) certificate is a digital certificate that authenticates the identity of a website and encrypts information sent to the webserver using SSL technology.
 
When your website has a SSL Certificate, every interaction the people and companies have with your website, remain PRIVATE. For example, your customers may be sharing their 'Personal Info' such as names, addresses, etc. when its demanded by your website. Your customers may also be sharing other transactional details such as credit card numbers, or other financial details, etc with you via your website. The SSL Certificate of your website will help you and them to keep this information secure, and private between them and your website.
SSL works by ensuring that any data transferred between users and websites, or between two systems, remains impossible to read. It uses encryption algorithms to scramble data in transit, which prevents hackers from reading it as it is sent over the connection.
 
Even if any hacker has hacked the internet connection between them and your website, he will not be able to eavesdrop on the information being exchange between your customer and your website, because it is encrypted using SSL/TLS technology. Hackers only get a bunch of unusable data, junk data that would be impossible to decipher without the encryption key.
 
If your website is not having SSL Certificate, then you are not having any encryption between the customer and your website. Thus any hacker can conveniently hack the connection, and listen in all the conversation between your website and its visitors. You don't want that? This kind of eavesdropping is an important consideration, particularly because so many of your users would opt to connect to your business site while signed in to public networks that usually have no security.
 
SSL certificate is required for an HTTPS web address. HTTPS is the secure form of HTTP, which means that HTTPS websites have their traffic encrypted by SSL.
 
You would say, "Oh I know all that..."
 
SSL certificates not only keep the visitors of your website safe, they also play a very important role in ALL the communication that happen with your email servers, server-to-server, and all sorts of your web-based applications, and more...
 
In technical terms, a SSL certificate is a file that is hosted within the origin server of a webpage. It contains crucial information that serves to validate the certificate and associate it with the domain it is designed to protect. It helps facilitate a TLS connection.
 
Following details are included within SSL certificates:
  • The domain name that the certificate was issued for
  • Which person, organization, or device it was issued to
  • Which Certificate Authority issued it
  • The Certificate Authority's digital signature
  • Associated subdomains
  • Issue date of the certificate
  • The expiry date of the certificate
  • The public key (the private key is not revealed)
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👉 How do SSL certificates work?

 
This is a process which is also known as 'SSL Handshake.'
 
The process works like this:
 
  • A browser or server attempts to connect to a website (i.e., a webserver) secured with SSL.
  • The browser or server requests that the webserver identifies itself.
  • The webserver sends the browser or server a copy of its SSL certificate in response.
  • The browser or server checks to see whether it trusts the SSL certificate. If it does, it signals this to the webserver.
  • The webserver then returns a digitally signed acknowledgment to start an SSL encrypted session.
  • Encrypted data is shared between the browser or server and the webserver.
 
This whole handshake happens within a few milliseconds. When a website is secured by an SSL certificate, the acronym HTTPS appears in the URL. A padlock icon will also display in the URL address bar. This signals trust and provides reassurance to the visitors of the website. Without an SSL certificate, only the letters HTTP will appear.
 
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👉👉👉 What are the types of SSL certificates?

 
There are different types of SSL certificates, each represents different validation level:
 

1. Extended Validation certificates (EV SSL)

 
This is the highest-ranking and most expensive type of SSL certificate. It tends to be used for 'HIGH PROFILE' websites which collect data and involve online payments. When installed, this SSL certificate displays the padlock, HTTPS, name of the business, and the country on the browser address bar. Displaying the website owner's information in the address bar helps distinguish the site from malicious sites.
 
To set up an EV SSL certificate, the website owner must go through a standardized identity verification process to confirm they are authorized legally to the exclusive rights to the domain. The review process may include elements such as:
 
  • Documents verifying the identity of the applicant
  • Corporate documents of the business
 
Also, the information is checked against information provided by an independent third party, which serves to confirm its validity.
 

2. Organization Validated certificates (OV SSL)

 
OV SSL certificates tend to be the second most expensive (after EV SSLs), and their primary purpose is to encrypt the user's sensitive information during TRANSACTIONS. Commercial or public-facing websites must install this type of SSL certificate to ensure that any customer information shared remains confidential, such as Debit or Credit Card info, etc.
 
This version of SSL certificate has a similar assurance similar level to the EV SSL certificate. As the website owner or organisation needs to complete a substantial validation process to get this certification. The info they need include where the organisation is physically located and its domain name. This type of certificate also displays the website owner's information in the address bar to distinguish from malicious sites.
 

3. Domain Validated certificates (DV SSL)

 
This SSL certificate type is one of the least expensive and quickest to obtain. They tend to be used for 'BLOGS' or 'informational' websites – i.e., which do not involve data collection or online payments. The browser address bar only displays HTTPS and a padlock with no business name displayed.
 
The validation process only requires website owners to prove domain ownership by responding to an email or phone call.The validation process to obtain this SSL certificate type is minimal, and as a result, Domain Validation SSL certificates provide lower assurance and minimal encryption.
 

4. Wildcard SSL certificates

 
Wildcard SSL certificates allow you to secure 'a base domain' and unlimited 'sub-domains' on a single certificate. If you have multiple sub-domains to secure, then a Wildcard SSL certificate purchase is much less expensive than buying individual SSL certificates for each of them.
 
Wildcard SSL certificates have an asterisk * as part of the common name, where the asterisk represents any valid sub-domains that have the same base domain.
 
For example, a single Wildcard certificate for *yourdomain.com can be used to secure:
 
crm.yourdomain[.]com
payments.yourdomain[.]com
blog.yourdomain[.]com
mail.yourdomain[.]com
download.yourdomain[.]com
anything.yourdomain[.]com, etc.
 

5. Multi-Domain SSL Certificate (MDC)

 
A Multi-Domain certificate can be used to secure many domains and/or sub-domain names. This includes the combination of completely unique domains and sub-domains with different TLDs (Top-Level Domains), EXCEPT for local/internal ones.
 
For example:
 
example[.]org
secure.example[.]org
www.example[.]com
checkout.example[.]com
mail.this-domain[.]net
example.anything[.]com.au, etc.
 
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IMPORTANT:
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Multi-Domain certificates do not support 'sub-domains' by default. If you need to secure both www.example[.]com and example[.]com with one Multi-Domain certificate, then both hostnames should be specified when obtaining the certificate.
 

6. Unified Communications Certificate (UCC)

 
UCC are also considered Multi-Domain SSL certificates. UCCs were initially designed to secure Microsoft Exchange and Live Communications servers. Today, any website owner can use these certificates to allow multiple domain names to be secured on a single certificate. UCC Certificates are organizationally validated and display a padlock on a browser. UCCs can be used as EV SSL certificates to give website visitors the highest assurance through the green address bar.
 
For example, you are web-designing company and have designed, built the number of websites for your customers. And you are also responsible for hosting and maintain those websites for your clients. In this situation, assuming you are hosting all those websites on, say Godaddy.com, hostgator.com or bluehost.com, using your 'own web-hosting account' there. Since all those websites are hosted using the same hosting accounting, then you should use UCC certificate. If you do that all websites of your clients will be made secure with the same certificate.
 
However, if you don't want your sites to appear connected to each other, then you shouldn't use this type of certificate.
 
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👉👉 How can you obtain an SSL certificate for your website?

 
You should obtain a SSL for your domain from a Certificate Authority (CA). A CA is an outside organization, a trusted third party, that generates and gives out SSL certificates. The CA will also digitally sign the certificate with their own private key, allowing client devices to verify it. Most, but not all, CAs will charge a fee for issuing a SSL certificate.
 
Once the certificate is issued, it needs to be installed and activated on your website's origin server. Web hosting services-provider can usually handle this for your website. Once it's activated on the origin server, your website will be able to load over HTTPS and all traffic to and from your website will be encrypted and secure.
 
However, you can obtain a free SSL certificate from many websites, such as Lets Encrypt, Cloudflare, ZeroSSL, etc.
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With thanks,
Meena R.
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This Article Was Written & published by Meena R,  Senior Manager - IT, at Luminis Consulting Services Pvt. Ltd, India. 

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