| Worried
about buying online?
Here's what www.webopedia.com has to
say
The
e-commerce business is all about making money and then
finding ways to make more money. Of course, it's hard
to make (more) money, when consumers don't feel safe
executing a transaction on your Web site. That's where
SSL (Secure Socket Layer) comes into play. Understanding
how SSL affects e-commerce business can also potentially
help you to unlock (more) money from your customers.
What is SSL?
Since its introduction in 1994, SSL has been the de facto
standard for e-commerce transaction security, and it's
likely to remain so well into the future.
SSL is all about encryption. SSL encrypts data, like
credit cards numbers (as well other personally identifiable
information), which prevents the "bad guys" from
stealing your information for malicious intent. You
know that you're on an SSL protected page when the
address begins with "https" and there is
a padlock icon at the bottom of the page (and in the
case of Mozilla Firefox in the address bar as well).
Your browser encrypts the data and sends to the receiving
Web site using either 40-bit or 128-bit encryption.
Your browser alone cannot secure the whole transaction
and that's why it's incumbent upon e-commerce site
builders to do their part.
SSL Certificates
At the other end of the equation, and of greatest importance
to e-commerce site builders, is the SSL certificate.
The SSL certificate sits on a secure server and is
used to encrypt the data and to identify the Web
site. The SSL certificate helps to prove the site
belongs to who it says it belongs to and contains
information about the certificate holder, the domain
that the certificate was issued to, the name of the
Certificate Authority who issued the certificate,
the root and the country it was issued in.
SSL certificates come in 40-bit and 128-bit varieties,
though 40-bit encryption has been hacked. As such,
you definitely should be looking at getting a 128-bit
certificate.
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