What is SSL Certificate and How it works?

what is SSL ?

SSL Stands for Secure Socket Layer is a technology used to make internet protocols secure, like HTTP to HTTPS our previous blog (HTTP VS HTTPS) clearly explained the differences between HTTP and HTTPS Protocol click here to visit that blog.

Then come back to SSL technology it is invented by Dr.Taher Elgamal an Egyptian cryptographer who worked at Netscape he recognized as the father of SSL.

Whenever the request moves from the web browser (client) to web server (server), it goes through the various networks, in plain text format (HTTP)  where the attacker can easily get the data or information like credit cards, So to protect the data and information we added SSL for HTTP which makes HTTPS where all the data transfers in a Secure Socket Layer which allow the encryption, decryption, and authentication over the data transfer all web browsers supports SSL.

SSL increases the security, authentication, reliability, SEO, performance, safe payments of the website or web application and prevents online spam attacks.

what is SSL Certificate ?

An SSL certificate consists of a key-pair of a public key and a private key to get an SSL certificate server must have a CSR (Certificate Signing Request) it creates a private key and a public key for your server.

SSL Certificate consists of

• Private Key File
• Public Key File
• Certificate Authority File

How SSL works?

SSL works on key-exchange and data encryption and decryption whenever the request going to the website from your web browser, works on Cryptography of Network Security principles

the fundamental working principles are two

1. Asymmetric Encryption
2. Symmetric Encryption

Asymmetric Encryption
In this method, we have two keys

The public key (Given to everyone who wants to communicate or connect with the server)

The private key (It only stored in server used for authenticating the public key value)

Both the public key and the private key generated by using mathematical models called Algorithms like RSA, DSA, ECC, and more in this method, data that is encrypted by the private key only decrypted by related public key in the key pair.

Symmetric Encryption
In this encryption method, we have a single key on both ends server and the client called secret-key only for them the secret key generated by using the Algorithms like AES, IDEA, RC4, and more.

Types of SSL

We have mainly three types of SSL certificates

• Domain Validated (DV SSL) – Its particularly based on domain names like google.com and facebook.com it validates the domain name and the websites on which it is installed it doesn’t validate any company or organization without giving much information about the organization you can purchase a domain validated SSL mostly used by normal businesss websites and personal blogs
  
• Organization Validated (OV SSL) – It is based on the organization level where the CA will validate the organization details like Name, address, and more and validates the certificates unlike the domain validates SSL you can see the organization name and details in this type of SSL mostly used for by Banks and Large scale organizations mostly ecommerce websites.
• Extended Validation (EV SSL) – In this type, the CA will verify the physical, legal and operational presence of the person or organization, CA will verify the business name and legal names and details as per the legal documents, The entity has to follow EV audit guidelines and criteria of CA. mostly used for by Government Organisations, Insitutions and Banks.

How to check your SSL certificate?

To verify your SSL certificate, expiration time, CA, Key Length, and more online there are various tools

Some of them are

1.SSL Checker

https://www.sslshopper.com/ssl-checker.html

2.Geo Cert SSL Checker

https://www.geocerts.com/ssl-checker

3.SSL Labs

https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/