What Is SSL, TLS and HTTPS?

Website and data security are of utmost importance in this day and age, considering the increasing cyberattack risks and threats. If online attackers steal your website’s data and critical customer information—it can have a potential threat to your business trust and reputation. 

This is why security solutions are important, and businesses buy SSL Certificates to protect their sensitive business information.

An SSL (Secure Socket Layer) Certificate is a digital or online certificate issued by the Certificate Authority (CA) to websites to offer data encryption and protection against malicious hackers and attackers. Several hosting companies offer SSL with their web hosting plans to ensure website security. 

However, many individuals get confused between SSL, TLS, and HTTPS. So, if you’re wondering how these three are connected to each other, we will find out exactly that in this article. 

Let’s first start with understanding what HTTPS is. 

What is HTTPS? 

HTTPS is nothing but a secure extension of HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol), hence, also known as HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure. 

HTTP is not so secure as it lacks data encryption and authentication capabilities—allowing anyone to access the data. In contrast, HTTPS creates a secure and encrypted connection between the website server and the user’s browser (client)—protecting the data against eavesdropping, data thefts, and tampering. 

Hence, HTTPS websites benefit from data security and boost the search engine, as Google prefers such websites. However, you do not get HTTPS automatically. Instead, you need to purchase a TLS or SSL Certificate to activate and use HTTPS. 

What is SSL? 

SSL is an encryption/decryption method that stands for Secure Sockets Layer meant to keep client to client, web server to server, or client to server internet connections secure. This connection prevents unauthorised parties from accessing or altering your website’s data across the internet. 

In 1999, an updated protocol was released to offer further security to eCommerce and non-eCommerce websites, replacing SSL as a standard website security certificate. This updated protocol is nothing but TLS. 

What is TLS? 

People use TLS and SSL interchangeably without realising the huge difference between these two. 

TLS is an extended and more secure version of SSL that stands for Transport Layer Security. Like SSL, TLS is also a cryptographic protocol that offers authentication, privacy, and data integrity—however, doing a much more effective job than an SSL. 

For the sake of accuracy and ensuring the general populace don’t treat them equally, authorities often use the term SSL/TLS to distinguish the two. 

Thus, all in all, it’s the SSL/TLS that puts the S in HTTPS. 

Even if an SSL Certificate for a website is not mandatory, they’re often recommended to enhance business credibility, trust, and reliability and boost the website’s SEO performance. 

Conclusion 

Hope the difference between the three protocols—HTTPS, SSL, and TLS is clear. Even though different, they’re strongly correlated and offer maximum data security and integrity against third parties. 

So, if you wish to boost your business credibility and ensure maximum data protection, buy a suitable Comodo SSL Certificate from a reliable web hosting provider for your business. 

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