In these times of heightened concerns relating to online security and the nefarious activities of online hackers, it is hopefully reassuring to know that there is a multitude of ways in which your website and its data can be protected. However, how people interact with the internet and specifically with websites, also means that ordinary people have concerns about the security of their personal data.
This has led us to a situation, and rightly so, that the majority of website owners are taking the necessary precautions to ensure that hackers have a much more difficult task in attacking their websites and trying to obtain data for criminal use.
One of the ways in which these precautions against hacking have improved is via a security protocol called Secure Sockets Layer which you are more likely to see abbreviated to SSL. Primarily, SSL’s function is to protect the data which is travelling between the user’s browser and the server the website is hosted on.
SSL creates protection by encrypting the data whilst it is en route between the server and the browser. With that in mind, it beholds us to ensure that you understand that means that data stored on the server is not protected by SSL. The best analogy we can think of is someone driving their car from their home to their office. Whilst in transit they and their car would be protected but neither their home nor office is.
How Does SSL Protect Internet Users?
The basis of how SSL works is relatively simple to understand especially in how it protects data from hackers. Imagine landing on an e-commerce website and deciding to make a purchase using your credit card. If a hacker has managed to install data reading software on that website’s server without being detected, they would be able to obtain your data and presumably use it to make purchases with your credit card.