PROTECTING YOUR WEBSITE

What if you typed in a domain name expecting a website to show up on your monitor and all you saw was a virus notice saying that your computer has been attached or worse infected?

Hopefully, this has not happened to you, although, it has happened to many people and many people have had to pay thousands of dollars to restore their systems.  Some people have tried to load their website only to find that it does not exist. What happened? A hacker compromised the site access and deleted the website off of the hosting server.  This has happened.

It doesn’t really matter why some people do harm when you have the ability to protect yourself from those that do harm do so.

#emailusInformation For the Non-Tech

All website addresses begin with “http://” and a secure website address starts like this “https://”, the “s” is the identifier that code is being used to create a shield around any data being transmitted from the server to the requesting computer.  This has always been a very important tool in our world and recently a necessity which very few website owners were taking seriously. I would commend Google for taking the necessary action to require that all websites employ SSL technology to protect their websites.

How does Google require the use of SSL?  They simply connect the presence of an SSL Certificate to Organic Search Rankings, if you do not have the certificate on your website you will not be ranked and when it does show up depending on the browser being used there will be a new identifier that says “not secure”.

The new security update will be part of Google Chrome, version 62, and Chrome has over 45% of the browser market share so if you want your website to appear safe to your visitors then you will need to employ SSL technology.

I also read an article published by Hubspot Research whose survey determined that 85% of people will not continue browsing if a site is not secure.

You want your website to show up as a secure place to be and give your visitors the peace of mind that they are browsing a safe website.

SSL Certificate Features

What comes with your SSL Certificate?  Here are some common features of an SSL Certificate.  You may not need them all and that would be your choice, although, you should know what is available.

Verification Seal – is a trust seal that you will place on your website visible to your visitors.

Malware Scanner – is a tool that will scan your website for malicious software.  Malware is a harmful or irritating type of software that secretly accesses a device without the user’s knowledge.  Most of us are familiar with most types of malware; spyware, worms, Trojan horses, phishing, viruses, adware, ransomware and hijackers.

IDN Support – Internationalized Domain Name – if you look this up on Wikipedia to read a fairly technical description of this component, or you can simply categorize this feature as one that applies to internet domain names that are international in nature.

SAN (UCC) support – Subject Alternative Name (Unified Communications Certificate) is a feature used to secure multiple domains with a single certificate.  By using specific identities such as an email address, IP address, or URL the SSL administrators are able to secure multiple domains with a single certificate.

40/128/156/256 bit encryption including a warranty – different levels of encryption will provide different levels of protection and require different levels of CPU overhead.  The 128-bit encryption will provide sufficient security for most environments. The larger 156/256 bit encryption levels are used mostly by US Military where multiple levels of security are employed.  Search and study to purchase what you are most comfortable using.

Extended Validation – or EV SSL Certificate confirms for website visitors that they are viewing your actual website.  Taking additional measures to verify that there is a business attached to the domain name the issuing organization of an EV SSL Certificate will request domain ownership, business registration, phone number, address.  Because previous versions of web browsers do not have the ability to identify the difference between a standard or “domain-only” SSL Certificate and an EV SSL Certificate the green address bar identifier of EV SSL would not show up until Web Browsers caught up.

The EV SSL Certificate will require the owner of the domain to verify additional information about their business this additional verification is what makes the EV SSL Certificate stand out as a more desirable solution.  Although, the protection strength from SSL or EV SSL is the same the authentication requirements are making the EV SSL stand out.

Symantec Seal-in-Search – this is a feature displays the Symantec insignia as a seal at the end of the Search Engine Result Title. This is a service that is offered to all Symantec SSL customers

Browser Compatibility – now that SSL Certificates are a requirement the Browser providers have stepped up their features to be compatible with the SSL Certificate providers.