How do you know
when a site has been secured?
There are 2 important clues
you should look for when trying to establish whether the website you are visiting
has been secured.
The Padlock
Before you enter any of your personal details i.e. contact details,
credit card etc, if you see the padlock in the bottom right-hand corner of your
browser status bar you know that a digital certificate has been installed onto
this website and that SSL encryption is in place. This means that information
being transmitted between your Web Browser and the Web Server you are connected
to on the Internet is safe from being tampered with.
beautiful and
damned has obtained the Geotrust Trusted Site Seal
and has been supplied with an authentic Trusted Site Seal. The Trusted
Site Seal is a secure image appearing on a website that allows visitors to tell
at a glance that their information can be securely transmitted.
You will see the Seal at the bottom of the beautiful and damned Secure Check Out area. By clicking on the Seal, visitors can get real-time confirmation of the validity of the certificate. The Trusted Site Seal pop-up will verify the details of the business behind the certificate:
* Organization name
* Domain name
* Country
* Status of the certificate
* Verification and expiry dates of the certificate
The Trusted Site Seal is your visible, real-time assurance of trust.
SSL and digital
certificates
SSL stands
for Secure Sockets Layer, a security protocol developed for managing the security
of online message transmission. SSL encrypts or scrambles any information sent
from your browser to the server you are connected to, making it impossible to
intercept and tamper with the information on the way.
The way that SSL is implemented is via a digital certificate. Digital certificates guarantee the security of the connection between the browser and the server.
Certification
Authorities
Certification
Authorities (CAs) are independent bodies that are authorized to issue and sign
digital certificates. As part of the process of signing digital certificates,
CAs validate the information to be contained in the digital certificate according
to their own Certificate Practice Statements (CPS)* before issuing the certificate.