What is SSL and why do I need a certificate?

The Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol is used to ensure secure transactions between web servers and browsers. The protocol uses a third party, a Certificate Authority (CA), to identify one end or both ends of a transaction. The certificate provides your website's users with the confidence that they are dealing with a safe website, that their transactions are secure (critical when making payments by credit card) and will know you have gone to great length to ensure that your website is who you claim to be. A certificate contains:

• Information about the owner of the certificate, such as e-mail address and Owner's name
• Certificate usage
• Resource location or Distinguished Name (DN), including Common Name (CN) (web site address or e-mail address depending of the usage)
• Certificate ID of the person who certifies (signs) this information
• Public key
• A hash to ensure that the certificate has not been tampered with

What do I get from a Certificate Authority (CA)?

When you go to get a certificate signed from a signing authority they will provide you with the public key of the certificate as well as detail such as the reference to the issuer, the dates of validity and the signature of the certificate. The signing authority will not provide you with the private key as this is created and stored on our servers and will never be transmitted to ensure security is maintained. The files the signing authority provides is generally in the format of a Chain file and a Certificate file.

What are the steps to get an SSL certificate on my Pronto Xi website?

Getting an SSL certificate is straight forward, the steps that will need to be followed are:

1. Fill out the form below
2. We will create a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) file to take to your signing authority.
3. Get the file signed by your signing authority. You should be provided with a Certificate file and Chain file
4. Send us the Certificate and Chain files.
5. We will upload the SSL certificate to your Pronto Xi website.

Who are the Certificate Authorities that can sign my CSR file?

Some SSL Certificate Authorities are:

• Symantec
• AustDomains
• Thwate
• DigiCert
• SSL Star