The Internet is not a very safe place for confidential chats. There are thousands of prying eyes waiting to plunder our personal information, address, phone number, and credit card information. That's why most companies use the secure HTTP protocol (HTTPS) when processing sensitive tasks. Today we are going to talk about HTTPS.
Some Technical Issues
HTTP is a protocol used by web servers and clients (browsers) to communicate and transfer web pages and files. There are a bunch of other protocols like FTP, SSH, and BitTorrent.
HTTPS is a secure version of the HTTP protocol that uses SSL (Secure Socket Layer) encryption. How SSL works in the background requires a bachelor's degree in computer science and a strong understanding of cryptography. All this is very complicated and we just have to keep in mind the following:
In a nutshell, HTTPS uses a set of public and private keys before data transfer. Once the join does this, the connection is established and a secure session begins. When we visit an HTTPS site, all of this happens almost instantly before you see the green light in your browser's address bar.
Four reasons why HTTPS is important
1. First-class security: With SSL, the connection is encrypted. A virtual tunnel is created through which only the server and the browser can communicate. No one else can interpret that channel. Even if an attacker accessed that channel, he would not be able to make sense of the encrypted data. You would need the private key which is only known by the browser.
2. Pre-examination: HTTPS requires an SSL certificate and the acquisition of the latter for a company to go through a serious process. It is necessary to have official documents that are presented and verified by the certificate authorizer (CA). Only when the documents pass the validation tests, the SSL certificate is issued.
3. Legitimate Companies: When we visit an SSL secure site, we can be sure of the site's credibility. You can always get the necessary contact details from the owner of the site's SSL certificate.
4. Data Integrity: Data integrity refers to the consistency of the data requested and the actual data received. Consider this example: someone visits your site for a certain entry of server configuration instructions. At the end of the post, we have put an affiliate link. On an unsecured site, an attacker could easily attack the connection and send your visitor the compromised data. In all likelihood, it will replace your affiliate link with a phishing link. Therefore there is a monumental difference between the data requested and the data actually received. The integrity of the data is destroyed. With SSL, none of this is possible!
Here's the trick:
Establishing a secure connection requires considerable computing power, both by the server and the client. This results in a slower transfer rate when compared to HTTP. That's why most sites don't use HTTPS all the time. These wait until the moment you try to access or make a purchase. E-commerce sites like Amazon and Newegg follow this rule. In this way, browsing is fast and purchases are safe.
Good question, but it's not a simple yes or no answer. So let's discuss this in detail.
Search engines prefer HTTPS sites (yes)
Here's a quote from a recent post on the Google Webmaster Central blog.
This is not to say that if we don't have HTTPS on our site, the SERP ranking will drop (for now). Most SEOs take this as an early indicator of what the future holds. Many people complain and question Google's decision. Why does everyone have to include HTTPS on their blog? To prevent hackers from reading user comments? Even the Google Webmaster Blog does not use SSL!
SSL configuration in WordPress
SSL configuration is a complicated and tedious process. It takes technical expertise, a lot of time, and there's a lot of room for error. It is recommended to speak to the host's support team to help get SSL up and running. If we are determined to switch to an HTTPS site, then it is a safe bet to assume that our budget can incorporate the cost of a managed WordPress hosting company.
