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Buyers' Guide to
Online Payment Acceptance
Chapter 3: Secure SSL
Certificates
Of
course you'll need a company to host your site,
but if you decide to process credit card orders
you'll need one that can provide a secure server.
In many cases the hosting company will provide
you with one for free, in other cases you may
have to pay up to $10 per month on top of your
normal hosting charges. If you want to use your
own domain name as a secure server rather than
your hosting companies domain name and
certificate, you'll need to purchase your own
certificate from either Thawte or Verisign which will cost between
$125 and $350 a year. EquiFax is another secure
certificate issuing company who can issue you a
certificate for your site for only $99.
So how does a secure certificate work? A secure
server is a web server application that ensures
secure information transfer between a web server
and a web browser. The encryption is done with a
protocol called SSL (Secure Socket Layer). When
you connect to a secure server with your browser,
the server and the browser use Secure Socked
Layer to tell each other how to encrypt the
information. Then they can securely exchange the
information. For example, you can send credit
card information to a secure server, and no one
will know what kind of information you sent.
So, the first task that a secure server does for
you is to encrypt your information. However, a
secure server does much more. The most important
task a secure server performs is to identify
itself to the browser. It identifies itself by
presenting a digital certificate to browsers who
request a secure connection. The certificate
works for a secure server the same way a driver
license works for you, except that it is much
more difficult to fake.
All of the above happens absolutely transparently
for the person browsing the site. Their browser
just tells them that the secure connection was
established and then shows the page. The most
important thing from an Internet merchant's
perspective, is that this gives your customer
more confidence, and convinces them that their
order information will be transferred to you
safely and securely.
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