Boofola Security Seal
When you see this seal on any Boofola LLC, Boofola Store, MyBoofola, BoofolaWorks, or one of our customer’s sites it means that YOU ARE PROTECTED AND SAFE!
So what exactly are SSL, TLS, and HTTPS?
Plus, why do you really need them?
What is an SSL Certificate?
SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer and, in short, it’s the standard technology for keeping an internet connection secure and safeguarding any sensitive data that is being sent between two systems, preventing criminals from reading and modifying any information transferred, including potential personal details. The two systems can be a server and a client (for example, a shopping website and browser) or server to server (for example, an application with personal identifiable information or with payroll information).
It does this by making sure that any data transferred between users and sites, or between two systems remain impossible to read. It uses encryption algorithms to scramble data in transit, preventing hackers from reading it as it is sent over the connection. This information could be anything sensitive or personal which can include credit card numbers and other financial information, names, and addresses.
TLS (Transport Layer Security) is just an updated, more secure, version of SSL. We still refer to our security certificates as SSL because it is a more commonly used term, but when you are buying SSL from DigiCert you are actually buying the most up to date TLS certificates with the option of ECC, RSA, or DSA encryption.
HTTPS (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure) appears in the URL when a website is secured by an SSL certificate. The details of the certificate, including the issuing authority and the corporate name of the website owner, can be viewed by clicking on the lock symbol on the browser bar.
An SSL certificate is installed on the server side but there are visual cues on the browser which can tell users that they are protected by SSL. Firstly, if SSL is present on the site, users will see https:// at the start of the web address rather than the http:// (the extra “s” stand for “secure”). Depending on what level of validation a certificate is given to the business, a secure connection may be indicated by the presence of a padlock icon or a green address bar signal.
Google now advocates that HTTPS, or SSL, should be used everywhere on the web and, as of 2014, the search engine has been rewarding secured websites with improved web rankings, another great reason for any site to install SSL.
Transport Layer Security (TLS) is the successor protocol to SSL. TLS is an improved version of SSL. It works in much the same way as the SSL, using encryption to protect the transfer of data and information. The two terms are often used interchangeably in the industry although SSL is still widely used. When you buy an ‘SSL’ certificate from DigiCert, you can of course use it with both SSL and TLS protocols.
