This paper tells about the need for security on the Internet, SSL Protocol, and how a Certificate is used to meet the demand for safe interaction over the Internet. .
Keywords: SSL, Certificate, and Certificate Authority. .
1. INTRODUCTION.
When we walk into a store, we know whom we are dealing with. We see the products, the branding and the store assistant. We can be sure that if something would be wrong with our purchase, we"ll recourse to the store manager or owner. But on the Internet, website visitors generally have no reliable way of knowing who owns the website (the virtual store). When customers visit a website with the intent of making an online purchase, they want to know whom they"ll be paying. They want proof of the identity of the website owner, and they want to know that the personal information they send to the website cannot be.
intercepted by other Internet users. This is where SSL certificates come to the fore.
SSL (Secure Socket Layer) is a protocol developed by Netscape that enables a web browser and a web server to communicate securely; it allows the web browser to authenticate the web server. The SSL protocol requires the web server to have a digital certificate installed on it in order for an SSL connection to be made. SSL works by using a public key to encrypt data that's transferred over the SSL connection. Both Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer support SSL, and many websites use the protocol to obtain confidential user information, such as credit card numbers. By convention, URLs that require an SSL connection start with https: instead of http.
2. SSL.
SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer protocol developed by Netscape and is the standard Internet protocol for secure communications. The secure hypertext transfer protocol (HTTPS) is a communications protocol designed to transfer encrypted information between computers over the World Wide Web. HTTPS is http using a Secure Socket Layer (SSL).