You wouldn’t give your credit card to someone hawking watches on the street; you should be just as cautious with your information online. Almost every credible site that collects personal information for purchases or identity verification uses an SSL certificate to safeguard you from third-party data theft. Verifying an SSL certificate is the process of checking that the certificate held by a website is valid and appropriately identified.

SSL certificates give website visitors the confidence they need to send personal information to the site, such as credit card numbers and addresses. SSL 3.0 is the industry standard for encrypting data transferred over a secure connection and is the second generation of SSL security. SSL certificates provide information about the site to which a user is connecting; they confirm that the site is what it claims to be. SSL certificates are issued by third parties such as VeriSign, GoDaddy, and Thawte, who validate the information contained in the certificates.

You can use an online SSL certificate checker to verify the authenticity of a site’s SSL certificate for yourself — not your own certificate, of course. You may read information about any public site’s certificate by entering its Web address, including who issued it, whether it should be trusted, and how long it will be before it expires. If an SSL certificate isn’t valid, expired, or otherwise suspect, don’t visit the site or give out any personal information until the certificate is renewed and you’re confident it’s safe.

When you visit a website, your computer downloads the SSL certificate that the site has. This may be anything from Amazon to eBay to Barnes and Noble. The digital signature of the authority that issued the SSL certificate is recognised by your browser, indicating that the company that verified the site you’re connecting to may be trusted. After the SSL certificate has been verified, your browser checks to see if the website you’re connecting to is the same as the one mentioned on the certificate, to ensure you’re not being rerouted by an attacker. Once the site is authenticated, a link is created between your computer and the server you’re connecting to, allowing you to transfer encrypted data that can only be decoded by the receiver.

When browsing a site with a secure connection, most browsers will display an icon, such as Internet Explorer’s lock icon. You may receive an SSL error if you connect to a site that does not have an SSL certificate or one that does not match the address. You must decide whether to proceed. Your browser will still provide you the choice to proceed even if the SSL certificate is invalid and hasn’t been confirmed.