Digital security is always top of mind for business in our present technological environment. There are an ever growing number of ways in which cyber criminals can access and leverage business information to put companies in a tricky spot. One security measure seems to remain relatively consistent in terms of usability and importance, and that is the SSL Certificate.
SSL Certificates are small digital files that bind a cryptographic key to an organization’s details. When installed on a web server, the SSL Certificate activates the kind of padlock as well as the https protocol thereby allowing secure connections from a web server to a browser. What that means is by connecting to the internet, your employees are more secure and less vulnerable to cyber attack while at the office.
SSL Certificates have recently come under scrutiny due to an increase in false use in phishing attempts and other cyber attacks. Google, in fact, withdrew their trust from certificate authority Symantec after coming to learn the authority had misused thousands of certificates over a period of several years.
When it comes to SSL certificates, their reliability depends entirely on the marking of HTTPS sites. However, the marking of HTTPS sites indicates only that the communications with the site are encrypted. A site can be encrypted and still be unsafe because the owner has been spoofed by a phisher or other cyber criminal. An over-reliance on the HTTPS padlock has led companies to become less vigilant of their interactions with these sites, thereby negating the security of an SSL certificate in the first place.
The thing to remember is that as cyber criminals and their attacks evolve, so too must our defenses. No security measure is perfect in the long term, so always be prepared to invest in the latest security updates to retain the trust of your customers and the security of your employees. Inevitably, browsers will fix the flaw and change how they indicate what is and what is not secure, and until then users must pay attention to the domain owner’s name to make sure that it is shown separately on the site apart from the URL. It is the domains which are validated, not necessarily just encrypted, which are the ones worthy of your trust as a user, and which are safe to communicate with as a business.
Security will always be a challenge from a business perspective because there will always be money to be made from a hacker or cyber criminal finding a weakness. To increase your confidence in your data use and storage, the best thing you can do is work with an experienced and professional data storage consultant like the experts at Happy Faces Records Management. Connect with a representative today to discuss your records management and data storage needs and we will work to find a solution that is right for your business.
