E-Commerce - SSL Certificates

by Digital Reliability

There are many ways that online stores can boost consumer confidence during their online shopping experience; such as, a privacy policy, return policy, and a security certificate known as an SSL Certificate.

SSL or Secure Sockets Layer certificates have been around for years. SSL certificates and their online role have evolved over time. This is a necessary process to maintain online security.

There are two major reasons certificates have to change over time. First, as computer technology improves and computers get faster (i.e. today's super-computer is tomorrow's laptop), certificates need to improve their security just to stay as secure as they were previously. Second, validation of the organization behind the certificate is becoming more important as fly-by-night stores and customer demand for assurance against fraud is increasing.

There are three types of certificates currently available: 1) Basic; 2) Validated; and 3) Extended Validation. The Basic certificate level offers the same encryption as the others and is the easiest to issue; but, provides almost no validation of the web site being issued the certificate. The Validated certificate level offers minimal validation of the organization using faxed documents where necessary and a confirmation phone call. The Extended Validation is the new certificate level designed in 2006 by a group of online authorities. The Extended Validation requires a corporate entity and independent verification of your organization and the web site. This ensures that when your web site displays the certificate, visitors can be assured the site is a legitimate company running an online store.

The push to use Extended Validation is strong. Internet browser organizations have already started displaying a special colored address bar to identify web sites that have been validated using these standard practices. The most recent being the "green address bar" which indicates the highest level of validation available has been performed on the web site. The focus on this coloring system used by the new browsers may have already affected consumer confidence in online stores not displaying the special "green address bar", as users are told that the site may be a "phishing" web site there to steal their information. Organizations that fail to switch to the Extended Validation certificate now, risk being viewed by visitors as unsecure, and worse yet fraudulent, and may lose sales to their competitors quickly.

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