SSL certificates have become extremely crucial if you own an online website in today’s world. Having an SSL certificate provides you with the advantage of looking more trustworthy as well as protecting sensitive data, ensuring a safe connection between you and the customer is established. Along with this, the google search engine also prefers to show the website with an SSL certificate on top.
Having an SSL certificate and not knowing how to set it up for maximum security is not enough. This article will tell you how to do that.
Secrets to Improve Your SSL Security
1. Buy an SSL Certificate from a Reliable Certification Authority
If you buy SSL certificate from a certification authority that is not recognized a lot by the public, not from a well-known certification authority, your website may have a lot of risk of losing sensitive information. Extreme sensitive data, for example, credit card details, can get leaked. Thus it is imperative to get the SSL certificate issued by a reputable authority to ensure maximum security.
2. Buy an SSL certificate suitable for you
Three main types of SSL certificates have different validation as well as functionality. It is crucial to choose one according to your security needs.
- Organization validation: You can get this certificate if you are a registered company. Obtaining this certificate might take a few days as the SSL authority verifies details regarding your business and issues it if they are sure you are authentic. The customers, in return, will be able to view important business details through the certificate that will help you in getting them to trust your website entirely.
- Domain validation: If you want to get encryption, you can get this cheap SSL certificate as it is easy to get and is not very expensive.
- Extended validation: This kind of certificate will surely gain customer trust as to get it, your organization will go through some rigorous vetting. However, it promises security and gains customer trust due to the information provided, as well as they know the certification authority thoroughly vets the business.
3. Protect Private Keys
To have maximum security, you must protect your private key, as losing it will put you at a very high-security risk. Make sure to generate it on a secure computer that is protected by a strong password and stored in a hardware device. If you still lose it, immediately revoke your SSL certificate, then generate a new certificate and the key.
4. Check for Expiration Dates
SSL certificates do have expiration dates after which they are not valid. After the expiration of the certificate, you are at risk of security. Hence it is important to keep a check on that and get it renewed close to its expiration date. Get it renewed a little before the expiration date to have it in time before it’s expired to avoid the risk of security even for a short while.
5. Apply HSTS
Applying HSTS will redirect users to the HTTPS page even when requested. To ensure this happens, add a new response header on your website. After it is done, your website won’t establish a connection with an HTTP page, thus promising maximum security.
Apply these five easy-to-follow secrets to ensure improved security for your website!
