Almost all websites online are using SSL/TLS for securing their online transactions with their clients. All the popular browsers are having mechanism to identify the certificate and validate it. When you are visiting a secure site the browser will display a “lock” icon in its status bar. The internet address of a secured site begins with https:// rather than http://, where ‘s’ represents that the site is using a secure server. In the absence of any of the above indicators, it is recommended to avoid doing online tranasaction within the site.

Data encryption and SSL/TLS Process
An authenticated website for online transaction gets its SSL/TLS certificate from an Certified Authority (CA) like Verisign. The certificate is installed in the web server hosting the authenticated site.

• When a user tries to access this authenticated site through his web browser, it sends a web page request to the web server.
• The server now responds with the SSL certificate.
• Web browser first verifies the validation of certificate, then encrypts the key seed of the session using SSL Public key and sends it to the server.
• Server sends an indication that all the future transmissions are encrypted.
• Then the communication between server and the browser in encrypted format follows until the connection closes.

Importance of SSL certified sites
Internet today can be called as wild west. This has become a major obstacle for the growth of ecommerce and online transactions. Making secure online transactions in these conditions majorly requires privacy and identity assurance. SSL/TLS certificate ensures both to the user. The encrypted format of data ensures safety from cyber criminals who try to steal the information during transactions. Identity assurance is another major feature of SSL/TLS certificate. This certificate is hard to obtain for ordinary or illegitimate websites. However, working with a website certified by an established CA is also important.

The credibility of SSL/TLS certificate
As mentioned earlier SSL/TLS certificates are not easier to obtain. These are operated by Certified Authorities. Certified Authority (CA) usually will be an well established entity. New comers must have to undergo significant barriers to enter into SSL/TLS certificate market and to be included into the webbrowser’s trusted “root” SSL/TLS certificates list. Thus, if it is an established CA that provides credibility for a SSL/TLS certificate, it is a secure and reliable browser that gives credibility to the CA.

How to validate a website for SSL certificate?
As SSL/TLS certificates are not easy to obtain, cyber criminals use different methods in web programming to create one of their own. However, we can validate a SSL certificate claimed by a website using few simple steps:

1. Open the URL in a website and make sure that the URL starts with “https://” rather than “http://”
2. When the website is loaded in the browser look for the lock icon. The
   

   lock icon is situated in the upper-right corner for Safari; in lower-right corner for Firefox and IE. The lock icon is situated in the right end corner of the address bar for Google Chrome. However, a lock icon doesn’t necessarily mean that the site is SSL certified.

3. In order to validate the SSL certificate click on the lock icon of the browser which displays a pop up window of the page info. Click on view certificate option for further details. This will show further details of the organization and the CA who issued the certificate. Check on the expiry date of the certificate by selecting Validity – > Not After.
   

   Valid SSL Certificate

   Invalid SSL Certificate

4. Always use high security browsers while doing online transactions. As these high security browsers have emerged after the development of the Extended Validation (EV) standard established by the CA/Browser forum, they can perfectly recognize between a valid and non-valid SSL certificate. IE 7+ and Mozilla Firefox 3+ versions are examples of high security web browsers.
   

   Warning message in Firefox

   Many web browsers block the webpage from loading and give an warning message when they find a website with suspicious or invalid SSL certificate.

However, online shopping has some concerns and risks associated with it. A lot of these risks are basically people dependent and can be prevented by being a little vigilant and following some basic precautions.

Precautions to keep online shopping secure:

Selecting a website: It is little difficult to check for a reliable website for shopping online. As we know, creating a website is quite easy has no restrictions. One must make sure that the website that they are transacting with is reliable. Always opt for buying from companies you already know. If you are planning to buy from an unknown website, start with smaller orders till you are contented with their service and reliability.

The URL of the website also helps you to find if the website is reliable or not. It should start with https://. The “s” that is displayed after “http” indicates that Web site is secure. Often, you do not see the “s” until you actually move to the order page on the Web site.

Checking if website is secure: Make sure the website is consistent on security grounds. The company may be reliable, but if it has no proper mechanism to secure their customer’s information from hacking, it is troublesome. Try to find if the merchant stores your data in encrypted form. Be sure to read privacy and security policies of the website before providing your personal information to them.

Checking for its reputation: Though there is no good logic to prove relation between reputation and reliability, reputed businesses cheat very rarely. Thus, it is good to go with the reputation of the website before doing business with it. You can check this with the help of search engines. Reputed businesses often have first page search listings.

Checking for its usability: Usability of the website helps you to attain certain knowledge on its credibility. Popup windows are always troublesome while doing the transaction in any website. Stay away from popup windows, and if possible, from the sites which allow them.

Run Antivirus Software: Before doing any online transaction one must update their antivirus software, which can help you to stay secure from unwanted cookies and applications.

Reveal Only the Bare Facts: It is common for any online merchant to ask you to signup before ordering a product. However, make sure you disclose only data which is mandatory and makes sense to provide. You do not require providing your social security number to any eCommerce merchant. If the site is trying to push you on edge to get too much information, it is recommended to simply leave the website.

Rechecking: Before doing or finalizing payment to the merchant make sure that the shopping cart has all and only the products that you have selected. You can add or delete any product only at this stage.

Payment Options: When it comes to payment options for purchasing online, there are many options like credit cards, debit cards, cash and cheques. Of all these options, credit cards are the safest option for purchasing online. It is recommended to have a separate credit card for e-commerce purchasing so that it will help in tracking dissolute credit charges easily.

Recheck again: After the transaction is complete, recheck for transaction details. Try to record them if possible. Finally, don’t forget to sign off from the site.

Online shopping is a trendy boon for shoppers, only if they are cautious during the transaction.

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