SSL: Secure Sockets Layer, is technically a means (protocol) that allows to establish a secure (encrypted) connection between two computers.
In this case, it is currently widely used to establish a connection between a Web server that hosts a site and an Internet user who connects or uses this site. This gives rise to those "famous" "https" connections, allowing you to make secure exchanges.
You can see the use of this mode of communication most often when you make an online payment, when you check that your page is secure by validating the presence of this "small padlock" which certifies that your connection is safe, to be able to enter your credit card number with confidence.
But the use of this protocol does not stop there, it is also used to establish secure connections with your personal mail accounts (e-mail), or to access such as file transfers (SFTP) to put your site online for example.
The use of this protocol requires the generation of an "SSL Certificate" which is a sort of "signature" that allows to establish this secure and unique link. It guarantees the identity of the server to which the connection is made as well as the protection of the data that circulates between the server and the equipment that connects to it via the Internet.
Good news: you can generate freeSSL certificates for your websites hosted on our servers as well as to establish your e-mail connections & file transfers!
And, concretely, what will this bring you?
The use of SSL certificates has many advantages, here is a list of the most important ones:
- Certified website: thanks to the use of an SSL certificate, people connecting to your websites will know that your site is "authentic" if they connect via the secure protocol"https://". In other words, people connecting to your site will be able to verify that they are connected to the real site thanks to its SSL certificate.
If this is the case, it means that they are victims of phishing , for example: an unfortunately widespread scam that consists of creating fake sites, exact copies of the original, in order to obtain confidential information from the customers of the original site; - Secure/encrypted connection : the data exchanged between your site and the people connecting to it will circulate in an encrypted manner on the Internet and will therefore not be exploitable by malicious people seeking to extract confidential or personal data. This is of course very useful for sales sites where there is the possibility to pay online, but also for sites where you manage or store sensitive data such as the exchange of personalized & confidential data with your customers;
- Secure/encrypted exchanges with our servers
: the consultation of your email as well as your file exchanges (transfer from or to your site for example) can also be encrypted and therefore secure. This guarantees a safe and private connection between your equipment and our servers.
If you wish to generate your own SSL certificates in your hosting for your site or your connections, you can follow the instructions in the following topic: How do I generate an SSL certificate for my domain?