LiquidWeb To Offer SSL Services From GlobalSign

August 3rd, 2009 · No Comments

Cybersecurity is on many peoples’ minds these days. And for good reason, as the number of Internet attacks, hacks and intrusions continue to rise.

That’s why the recent announcement that fully managed web hosting provider, Liquid Web, is to offer Secure Socket Layer (SSL) services makes it even more attractive for their customers. Prior to this they had to purchase SSL certificates and services from separate companies.

If you’ve bought anything online from a well-known brand (e.g. Amazon.com) you may be familiar with the encrypted ‘lock’ icon in the browser’s address bar. Many users still have no idea what this icon signifies. It means that the transaction between your browser and the ecommerce serve has been encrypted using Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology – and you can have a high degree of confidence that your credit card information and other data is being securely transmitted and received.

There are also compliance reasons for the increase in demand for SSL certificates and services – hosting customers are being required to demonstrate that their online business operations are secure. Web hosting providers are therefore keen to make it easier for them to do by providing one-stop hosting and security solutions, such as SSL certificates.

Liquid Web currently offers three web hosting package levels; Standard, Webmaster, and Professional. They’re positioned for clients who need very high reliability and support at an affordable rate. To start with, Liquid Web are providing GlobalSign’s SSL Certificates into their Professional web hosting package which is the most robust out of the three.

LiquidWeb .com will initially offer all three types of SSL Certificates, the fast issuance Domain Validation SSL, traditional Organization Validation SSL, and the newly standardized Extended Validation (EV) SSL, which activates the green address bar interface in IE, Firefox, Opera, Chrome, and Safari browsers.

Even though Liquid Web serves a more high end and technically knowledgeable customer base, they will be engaging in ongoing educational marketing opportunities to spread the word about their SSL certificate solutions. Expect this to take the form of a co-branded site seal – combining both Liquid Web and GlobalSign’s logos.

Think SSL certificates are for large e-commerce sites? Think again. The ‘bad guys’ are just as likely to attack smaller sites that do online transactions – maybe even more so, as they figure that their webmasters are probably not aware of SSL technology and how to use it.

Just recently, some independent security analysts at the BlackHat and Defcon security conferences demonstrated that there may be ‘taps’ or ‘main-in-the-middle’ weaknesses with some SSL certificates and how they work with browsers. Apparently, browser makers (such as Microsoft) are working on fixes. SSL certificate companies maintain that Extended Validation SSL certificates are not vulnerable to these attacks. But what about the others?

LiquidWeb is a premium web hosting provider. They own and operate their own infrastructure, including three data centers.