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| SSL Certificate FAQ's
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What
is SSL?
The SSL (for Secure Socket Layer) protocol, is the de facto standard for encrypting
communications that flow between browsers and web servers and vice versa. In fact,
both Microsoft IE and Netscape Navigator as well as information servers such as
IIS and Apache contain implementations of the SLL protocol.
Who
uses SSL?
When you submit your credit card to purchase an item on a
web site, your credit card information is most likely transferred to the vendor’s
web site using the SSL protocol. You can verify that a certain page on a web site
is using SSL by either looking at the URL (if the page uses SSL the URL starts
with https:// instead of http://) or at the bottom bar of the browser (if a 'closed
lock' is displayed, SSL has been enabled).
SSL
strengths: 40 and 128-bit encryption
SSL comes in two strengths, 40-bit and 128-bit, which refer to the length of the
session key generated. The longer the key the more difficult is to break the encryption
code. 128-bit encryption is approximately 3x1026 stronger than 40-bit encryption.
Because the fee that companies pay to the Certificate Authorities varies with
the strength of the encryption used, some web site administrators may set their
servers to only require 40 or 56-bit operations. Most online banking transactions
however are now secured by SSL using 128 encryption.
SSL
server certificates
In order for web server to prove their authenticity to the
visitor's browser, they need to use SSL server certificates. These certificates
are issued by Certificate Authorities like Verisign and other independent third
parties that issue certificates to organizations and individuals after a thorough
investigation that the prospective certificate owner is the individual or the
organization that it claims to be.
SSL
certificates confirm the identity of the site to the site visitor's browser.
When a visitor hits a web site, the web browser automatically
check that the certificate of the server and the public ID are valid and have
issued by a certificate authority included in the list of trusted authorities
built into the browser. There are a limited number of CA certificates which come
pre-installed in the browsers, one of which belongs to RSA.
SSL
and Email
If you want to prevent people equipped with packet sniffing
software from intercepting or tampering with the data in transit over the Internet,
you can use a web based email system that support SSL, or you can digitally
sign your emails by purchasing a digital ID.
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