How SSL works? a brief intro for beginners

Saad Hasan
4 min readFeb 1, 2023

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In this digital age, businesses and organizations are heavily reliant on online services. Individuals too are increasingly performing tasks online, including financial transactions. As money is transferred over the web, security is of utmost importance. To make sure your transactions are secure and legitimate, it is essential to only use sites with SSL certificates. These certificates help keep customer data private and secure online payments. But how can you be sure a website is safe? The answer lies in the SSL certificate.

So, without further ado, let’s dig in!

Introduction about SSL

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is a technology that provides a secure connection between two systems. It is most commonly used to protect data transmitted over the internet, such as credit card numbers, passwords, and other sensitive information. SSL works by encrypting data that is sent between two systems so that it cannot be read by anyone else. In this blog post, we’ll take a look at how SSL works and why it’s important for online security.

What is SSL stands for?

SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer and is a protocol designed to provide secure communications over the internet. SSL works by encrypting data before it is sent from one system to another, making it unreadable by anyone except the intended recipient. This encryption process ensures that any sensitive information sent over the internet remains private and secure.

SSL supports the following Security principles :

  • Protect the data in transmission. For instance, browser to browser or app to server.
  • Enhances authentication where the server is connected to the actual server.
  • Data integrity, which means, whatever data is sent or submitted, is delivered without changes.

How Does SSL Work?

When two systems communicate with each other over the internet, they establish an SSL connection using what is known as an “SSL handshake”. During this process, both systems authenticate each other’s identity and negotiate an encryption algorithm to use for the transmission of data. Once this handshake has been completed, all data sent between the two systems will be encrypted using this algorithm.

The encryption process begins with a public key being exchanged between both systems. This key is used to encrypt any data sent from one system to another. The encrypted data can then only be decrypted using a private key which only the recipient system has access to. This ensures that only the intended recipient can read any messages sent over an SSL connection.

Why Is SSL Important?

SSL provides an extra layer of security when transmitting sensitive information over the internet and helps protect against malicious attacks such as man-in-the-middle attacks or eavesdropping attempts on unsecured networks. By encrypting all data transmitted between two systems, it prevents unauthorized users from accessing or tampering with any sensitive information being exchanged. This makes it much more difficult for attackers to gain access to confidential information or disrupt communication between two parties on the internet.

What Are The Different Types Of SSL Certificates?

There are several different types of SSL certificates available depending on your needs:

Domain Validation (DV)

This is the most basic level of SSL validation and can ensure secure data encryption. But it cannot ensure that the owner of the site is a legitimate business holder.

Organization Validation (OV)

After validating the domain, it validates the organization as well. These certificates usually confirm the existence of the organization. This will confirm the legal and physical existence of the company. You will usually see a lock in the address bar. This ensures the protection of the site from hackers.

Extended Validation (EV)

The green bar shown in the browser comes from this SSL type. The owner of the website has to pass through a globally standardized verification process. This is done to confirm its legal and physical existence. In addition, it verifies the domain and also cross-checks the physical location. This is one of the most comprehensive verification checking certificates.

Conclusion

In conclusion , SSL provides an extra layer of security when transmitting sensitive information over the internet . It helps protect against malicious attacks such as man-in-the-middle attacks or eavesdropping attempts on unsecured networks . There are several different types of SSL certificates available depending on your needs , each offering different levels of security . By understanding how SSL works , you can ensure that your online transactions remain safe and secure .

If you find it useful, don’t forget to clap for it & feel free to comment below and let me know your feedback.

In addition , please have a look to previous shared stories below.

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Saad Hasan
Saad Hasan

Written by Saad Hasan

AWS Cloud Engineer ، Kafka Admin , OpenShift , I write about cloud knowledge.

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