What is SSL?
SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is a global security protocol designed to provide encryption-based communication between a web server and a web browser.
By establishing a secure communication between them, an SSL Certificate makes the potential visitors feel safe to give sensitive information (e.g. usernames, passwords, credit card numbers, etc.) in making purchases.
Using an SSL Certificate has become obligatory for the online business to establish a private conversation between two parties and protect the sensitive information from identity thieves and hackers.
The communication between a web server and a browser is usually in the form of a plain text and it makes the data vulnerable to the attackers and results to be seen and used by them.
Hence an SSL Certificate secures connections by determining variables of the encryption for the URL and the data being sent.
Why do I need an SSL Certificate?
SSL protects the data of millions of users on the Internet while sharing their private information during online transactions. Users can understand if a website is SSL-secured or not with a lock icon or a green address bar. Also, SSL-secured websites begin with “https” instead of “http”.
Because online communication and transactions have become part of our lives, there is nearly no reason to not use a SSL Certificate. To sum up briefly, these are the security principles that SSL supports:
- Encryption: enables to protect the data transmissions (e.g. between the web servers and web browsers)
- Authentication: enables to connect the correct server
- Data Integrity: ensures that requested or submitted data matches with the delivered data
How can I obtain a Free SSL Certificate?
If you do not have an SSL certificate and don’t want to deal with the purchase procedures, you can obtain a free SSL certificate directly from the Merlin CDN Management panel to use in your distribution. By choosing this option, a Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate with a 90-day validity period will be deployed to your distribution.
It will be automatically renewed before the expiration date. Hence, once you activate this feature, you do not need to think about your SSL certificate any longer.
For learning steps to enable free SSL certificate and more, you can check "Add SSL Certificate to a CNAME" article.