SSL Certificates are required to build trust

Internet, by default, is not a secure medium to send or receive information and that’s the reason why you need to take some steps to ensure the security. One way of making websites securer is available in the form of SSL certificates.

Today, companies are endeavoring to help online users to shop securely over the internet by using SSL certificates but there is another form of digital certificates called Extended Validation SSL certificates. In the start of 2008, it was found in some surveys that around 0.5% of the total number of people use EV SSL certificates.

Precisely, more than 4000 people were using EV SSL certificates in the beginning of 2008. Considering the last year’s result showing that only 81 people used EV SSL certificates, 4000 is a really good improvement. It clearly shows that trend is growing but the numbers are still on the lower side especially when you see that more than 809,000 sites use traditional SSL certificates.

Though SSL certificates are considered as one of the best ways to enforce more security but there certainly are some loopholes especially when you will check the Netcraft’s SSL Survey of June. In this survey, it was found that Debian OpenSSL vulnerability affected a large number of SSL certificates.

In the same survey conducted by Netcraft, Equifax was found to be on top in terms of popularity. Equifax was followed by Thawte, a Verisign company which was the first to offer digital certificates. Both of these names are well recognized by the users because of the consistent performance.

In case of Thawte, features like 256 bit encryption, domain name verification and IDN supports allow it to be on top. Along with some entry level certificates, there are some sophisticated certificates as well which can cope with different vulnerabilities. All this implies that SSL certificates are likely to get better in near future.