Secure server certificate details

A secure server certificate is a digital certificates which has two purposes:

1. Authenticate a website address establishing a level of trust for the client.
2. Allow encrypted communication for all information passed between the client and the website operator.

All our certificates use up to 256 bit SSL to encrypt client-server communication and protect your privacy. This is the strongest form of commercially available encryption for web (HTTP) pages. All certificates are issued by the certification authority GeoTrust. You can find information on browser and server support on this separate page. We recommend True BusinessID for the majority of our customers. The differences between all the products is highlighted below.

RapidSSL

QuickSSL Premium

True BusinessID

True BusinessID Wildcard

View browser and server support.
Step by step outline of the purchase procedure.

Terminology

Digital certificate

A digital certificate is an electronic "identity card" that establishes your credentials when doing business over the internet or performing other forms of electronic transactions. The certificate is issued and signed by a certification authority (CA). It contains your common name (in the above case this is a domain name), possibly your organisation name and address, a serial number, expiration dates, a copy of the certificate holders public key and the digital signature of the CA. The public key is used to encrypt messages over the internet or sign electronic information on behalf of the common name. The digital signature of the CA is used to validate the authenticity of the certificate. Digital certificates can be kept in registries so that authenticating users can lookup other users public keys.

Secure socket layer (SSL)

The SSL protocol is the web standard used for encrypting communications between entities over the internet. Data sent via an SSL connection is protected by strong encryption, preventing eavesdropping and tampering with any transmitted data. SSL provides businesses and consumers with the confidence that private data sent to a web site or over the internet, such as credit card numbers, are kept confidential. With the addition of digital certificates, SSL provides proof of the identity of one or both of the communicating parties.

Trusted root CA certificate

A trusted root CA certificate is a certificate of a certification authority (CA) which is added to a browser by the browser vendor. It signifies that the browser vendor (such as Microsoft) trusts the CA and will hence establish a high level of trust with websites that use SSL certificates signed by this CA.

Chained root CA certificate

A chained root CA certificate is a certificate of a certification authority (CA) which is not present in a browser as opposed to a trusted root CA certificate. However, the chained certificate has been issued by a CA with a trusted root CA certificate. Since there is no direct relationship between the browser vendor and the chained root CA a lower level of trust is established. Furthermore authenticating sites with certificates signed by a chained root CA is more complex and requires more information to be exchanged between the server and the client.

Common name

This is the name of the entity to be certified. In the context of a web server certificate this is the exact fully qualified domain/host name of the website (for this site that is www.spacereg.com). If the wrong common name is used then the certification authority will not sign the certificate. It is possible to use a wildcard common name, such as *.spacereg.com which will certify a domain name and all its sub-domains.
The common name is encoded in the certificate signing request (CSR) that is submitted to the certification authority.

Extended validation (EV) certificates

Extended validation SSL certificates provide the highest level of online assurance that is currently available. The verification procedures are standardized across all certification authorities and provide the most extensive SSL vetting process available. They are available only to corporations which are legally registered and verified with a registered status of Good Standing, Active or equivalent. A letter from an attorney or accountant is typically required during application. The process then verifies the organization's identity, the validity of the request and the overall legitimacy of the business.