If you have something to sell online, it’s vital to have a secured website. Customers get quite skeptic while providing their credit card information and it’s important to earn their confidence. What customers want the most is a secured website and to make your website fall in that category, you must know about PCI compliance and SSL certificates.
What is PCI Compliance?
PCI DSS stands for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard. It is a set of requirements that ensure that companies maintain a secured environment while processing, transmitting or storing any sort of credit card information of the customers.
To Whom Does PCI Apply?
PCI is applicable for any merchant or business house, independent of certain factors such as: size of the business, number of transactions held etc. So, if you have credit card or debit card payment option in your website, you have to abide by the PCI DSS requirements.
What is a SSL Certificate?
SSL stands for Secure Socket Layer and it is a protocol created by Netscape. This ensures that all the transactions made between browsers and web servers are secured. A Certificate Authority is used to identify the respective parties of a transaction. The certificate is a type of document and it stores the information about the owner. Thus, you are aware exactly with whom you are dealing with. The certificate contains certain information such as: the name of the SSL certificate Owner, owner’s e-mail address, certificate usage details, certificate ID of the person who signs the information, public key and hash to ensure that the certificate is not tampered.
How do you acheive PCI Compliance and get a SSL Certificate?
A good hosting company will provide you with an environment that is PCI compliant, while allowing you to set up a SSL certificate on your server. Obviously, there are other factors to consider while choosing a hosting company, but you should keep these points in mind when browsing for the right host. If you accept credit card payments, not having a good secure website in place could get you into trouble. Not only that, but, if you have the SSL certified seal on your website, your customers will be more comfortable in buying a product from your website. They will know right at the beginning that their information is completely safe with you.
You can purchase a SSL certificate from GoDadddy – they are affordable and offer the security that you need for transactions through your website.
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