If you have a website, you need to know what encryption is and adopt it on your platform in order to improve your Internet users' web security.
That's because it helps protect data and confidential information on your website, preventing internet threats from accessing these contents.
To better understand this issue, we've made this complete article to explain exactly what encryption is, when to use it, and why it provides security for your site. Read on!
What is encryption?
Encryption is a technological resource that can protect data so that only authorized people can access it using an access key.
In this sense, cryptography is used to send encrypted or encrypted messages, allowing only the sender and receiver to have access to the encrypted content.
For this to happen, the information is transformed into codes, making it difficult for unauthorized persons to read the content.
But how does this work in practice? Encryption can scramble the content of any file or message. Then the data is hidden and a code is generated.
After that, the sender and receiver receive a key that is used to decrypt the code created to hide the data.
When to use encryption and why is it important to the site?
This feature can be used in different situations, some of them are:
- Exchange of information via the Internet;
- Protection of business and personal computers;
- Cloud data protection;
- Protection of your company against cyber attacks;
- Transaction of cryptocurrencies (digital currencies) in a network;
- Digital signature of any document;
- Creation of security areas on the computer.
Thus, knowledge about cryptography is essential for the IT area. This, of course, also involves website management.
In this regard, there are several reasons that show how much encryption is needed. One of them, perhaps the main one, is the protection of data against leaks.
Imagine that your website has been attacked and, as a result, hackers have accessed your customers' data, such as full name, address, identity, CPF, card number, etc.
Therefore, criminals can easily carry out fraud using this information. Needless to say, this directly influences your company's credibility, right?
After all, customers can initiate processes and, therefore, cause negative impacts on your image. So, it's better to run away from this problem.
How does encryption protect your website?
Now that you understand what encryption is and why you use it, it's time to see how it protects your website.
Have you noticed that, on some sites, right before the address, there is a lock? This symbol shows that the website is properly secured via SSL/TLS certificate, providing a secure connection.
SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is a digital security modality that performs an encrypted communication between the browser and the website.
However, this technology has been replaced by TLS (Transport Layer Security), which does a similar job to SSL.
Through the SSL/TLS certificate, the website acquires the secure HTTP extension, which is HTTPS, which promotes a secure connection with the server.
Therefore, the use of SSL/TLS is aimed at promoting the secure transmission of login, payment and other personal information.
So that you can understand how encryption protects your website, let's explain how SSL/TLS certificate works.
How does SSL/TLS certificate work?
This type of certificate issues an encryption key that is joined to the identification data of a company. In this context, two types of keys can be issued:
- Public key: also known as asymmetric, the public key is characterized by a pair of keys, with a public code that does the encryption and a private one that does the decryption. Therefore, it is common knowledge.
- Private key: called symmetric or secret, the private key refers to the modality in which the sender and receiver have the same key to do the encryption and decryption.
With this, data can be transmitted in such a way that only authorized persons can access it.
In addition to public and private keys, the SSL/TLS certificate also has session keys aimed at secure connections.
To create the session key, public and private keys are used. Then it is used for the purpose of encrypting and decrypting information. Remember that the session key has a certain usage time.
So, the moment the user types the website address with SSL (in this case, the address would be “https//…”), he is able to browse a secure page while the server and browser make the connection.
Why use this certificate?
In addition to knowing what encryption is in general, it is also important to understand why SSL/TLS certificate is critical to your website. In this sense, we highlight three situations in which it is necessary:
Reliability: those who have a website and request personal information from users and customers need to be concerned about the sense of security that their platform must promote. With the certificate, people feel more secure and comfortable to enter personal data;
Authentication: SSL/TLS certificate shows your visitors that your server's identity is authentic. Remember that without it, any server can intercept your information and impersonate the original server;
Standardization: In some industry sectors, companies need to adopt a basic security standard. In this case, one of the obligations might be the use of SSL/TLS certificate.
See how the SSL/TLS certificate is essential for the protection of your website? Although he can't guarantee that his platform doesn't suffer threats, he manages to avoid them as much as possible. Therefore, its use is extremely necessary.
In this article, you could see what encryption is and how it promotes the security of your website. To learn more about topics related to this topic, check out our article on information security.
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