Correct installation of SSL-certificate: how to verify this?

Never information is transmitted as quickly as today. Transfer of funds from the account, send an order or document can take only a few seconds. And it is largely accelerates and facilitates the work. But because any confidential information on the Internet can be intercepted by hackers, it should be encrypted. To do this you should set SSL-certificates on sites, which at the same time increase the confidence of users and website ranking in Google search results.

In this article, we want to draw attention to the site owners and webmasters to important reasons why not only install the certificate enough. For full protection you should make regular checks SSL.

You probably know that the digital security certificate of the website (SSL-certificate) – it is a file, a kind of electronic passport, which allows the server of site and device of visitor authenticate each other, and then to establish a connection and transmit electronic information in an encrypted form.

After installation, it is necessary to perform SSL-connection diagnostics to make sure that:

• The certificate is installed correctly
• The certificate corresponds to the period specified in the contract
• In the certificate is no vulnerabilities and it performs its functions
• The last point is less obvious, but therefore requires special attention

Firstly, the site’s security certificate issued by CA, which appears more and more every year. Therefore, if you have installed the SSL-certificate, be sure to check SSL-connection.

Secondly, in the certificates themselves periodically find critical vulnerabilities, leading to a large number of hacking sites worldwide. The largest vulnerabilities in the SSL are called Heartbleed and Poodle. Due to errors in the code, attackers were able to massively crack sites and decode the transmitted information: usernames and passwords, data from bank cards, the cookie and personal data, retrieving them from memory of Web server.

According to some estimates, vulnerability Heartbleed has affected two-thirds of all sites running the https protocol, and the damage is estimated at nearly $ 500 million. Although the Poodle has affected only 10% of sites, among them were banks, large companies and ministries.

How to timely detect problems with the site’s security certificate

Some are interested in how to turn off SSL-inspecting connections. But this is not worth doing. Algorithms attacks on hacking of data are constantly updated and finalized. It is therefore necessary to keep “finger on the pulse” to protect data.

Moreover, it is not necessary to do SSL certificate validation using browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Internet Explorer, etc.), because each of them uses its own way, skipping while important steps.

If you use SSL / TSL-certificate for your website or are planning to install it, check specialized service, which in a short period of time perform SSL-inspecting the validity of the certificate, its hash-algorithm, as well as assess the safety of the whole site.