Here's all of the information you'll need to pick the correct SSL Security Solution for your website.

We all need web security. Since the advent of the internet there have been cyber-threats and cybercriminals attempting to disrupt it. As the internet has evolved, so too have these threats. Today, cybercrime is as sophisticated as ever, with hackers looking to exploit any and all vulnerabilities available to them.

The key to cyber security is to always stay one step ahead. Nowadays defending your website from potential threats requires a comprehensive security solution—and no component of that security solution is more important than SSL/TLS.

Let's start with the basics: What the heck is an SSL/TLS Certificate?

When a computer connects to a website, communication begins between the computer's web browser and the web server the site is hosted on. Typically, this communication is unguarded, meaning it's out in the open and any interested third party can have a look at it. As you can imagine, if you're transmitting important personal information having it out in the open is not an ideal way to do things.

Think of an SSL/TLS certificate as a driver’s license of sorts—it serves two functions. It grants permissions to use encrypted communication via Public Key Infrastructure, and also authenticates the identity of the certificate’s holder.

Encryption is a process that takes information and essentially scrambles it – and the only one who can unscramble it is a server or computer with a corresponding key. There's a lot to learn about keys, both private and public, but that's a topic for another day.

Authentication is done via the organization that issues the SSL certificate. These Certificate Authorities, as they are called, go through a validation process depending on which type of certificate a website is purchasing. There are three types of cetificate levels: