GeoCerts Blog

What is TLS? Is it the same as SSL? Can I get a certificate for a specific version of TLS? What you need to know about the relationship between servers, certificates, and TLS.

Learn how to install a single SSL certificate on multiple servers using the Export/Import method or the Issue/Reissue method. Deploying SSL/TLS certificate keys between Windows, Java, Apache, and NGINX servers are discussed.

7 Tips That Will Help Protect Your Website Guests' Data With SSL Certificate

What is Ransomware? Ransomware is malware that employs encryption to hold a victim's information at ransom. A user or organization's critical data is encrypted so that they cannot access files, databases, or applications. A ransom is then demanded to provide access. What makes a company vulnerable to an attack? All ...

We are often asked about errors received stating the connection to your site is not secure. You have followed our instructions and installed and bound your new certificate to your site, but when you try to access it your browser will not connect and gives you an error.

All about SSL certificate PFX files and how to generate your own PFX file from Windows and Linux servers.How do I download a PFX file? All about PFX certificate archive files and how to generate your own PFX (PKCS #12) file.

Planned downtime maintenance window

Saturday, April 6, 2019 8:30 AM to 8:30 PM Pacific Time

Pros, Cons and other Considerations. Which type of certificate is right for me? So, you want a single certificate to cover multiple sites. Which type of certificate should you purchase? The type will depend on a number of variable including the number of sites, the number of base domains, what ...

One-eyed Jacks are Wild! Wildcard SSL certificates will allow you to secure an unlimited number of subdomains for a registered base-domain. Let's say you own the base-domain example.com , then a wildcard for *.example.com can secure any-subdomain.example.com . Basically the asterisk (*), or star is the wildcard and can be ...

As you know, Google Chrome version 70 will distrust the final batch of Symantec Trusted Roots for GeoTrust and Symantec Certificates you have purchased from us. The public release of Chrome 70 is scheduled for October 16, 2018 and many of our customers have asked how they can test their ...

Google Chrome 68 is here and as promised, the Chrome Browser is now marking HTTP as “Not secure” . We first blogged about this in March of 2018 and the time is now to make sure that all web sites are published using always-on HTTPS. This development matters greatly to ...

Apple has announced that it is deprecating trust for Symantec roots starting in summer of 2018 . Apart from its timing, this program is very similar to that taken by the Chrome and Firefox browsers. In the summer (exact date not specified) Apple will distrust TLS/SSL certificates on all public ...

Here at GeoCerts we provide a lot of wildcard and multi-domain certificates to our customers. Both these certificates allow for a single certificate to work for more than one URL address.

It stands to reason that consumers would be more inclined to engage in transactions and share confidential information on a site where the green address bar is available. The green address bar is a visible indicator of the identity of the organization that operates a site

Since Chrome announced in 2017 that is was deprecating trust for Symantec's certificate brands, including GeoTrust , Thawte , and RapidSSL , we have continued to receive inquiries about whether or not GeoTrust is a trusted, credible certificate for use on production websites. Fortunately, these brands' new parent company DigiCert ...

After we started thinking about terms that were used in multiple forms in the TLS/SSL business, in occurred to us that the names themselves could be very confusing. So here we are with the Brand Name Edition of our synonyms and misnomers discussion. GeoCerts vs. GeoTrust We frequently encounter people ...

Firefox is set to follow a similar deprecation schedule for GeoTrust and other Symantec certificates. Read on to learn more.

Digital certificates are a terminology-heavy technology space. Here are some of the terms that are used differently in various circumstances. SSL vs. TLS HTTPS vs. https Secure Sockets Layer vs. Secure Socket Layer Cert vs. certificate

One relatively new certificate management capability that many site administrators don't know about is the ability to specify which CAs are allowed to issue certificates for the domains you control. This capability is called Certificate Authority Authorization, or CAA, and it's accomplished using DNS records. Here's how it works. Your ...

GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is a broad-reaching regulation meant to protect the private data of Europeans in personal systems. The 99-article regulation is very long and covers a broad variety of topics. Announced in 2017, GDPR will go into effect as a requirement on May 25, 2018. GDPR applies ...

In 2015 the PCI Security Standards Council set a June 30, 2018 deadline for entities accepting credit card payments to deprecate support for all versions of SSL/TLS prior to TLS 1.1 . The reasons for this requirement are a variety of security vulnerabilities (including certain flavors of man-in-the-middle and downgrade ...

GeoCerts has long been known for the SSL information and tools we provide. Our comprehensive SSL installation guides draw readers from all over the world seeking clear instructions on how to correctly implement certificates across a broad set of operating systems. And for more than a decade our SSL Installation ...

Many people associate GeoCerts very strongly with GeoTrust SSL certificates. That is not simply because of the similarity of the two names. In this post we'll briefly overview the relationship between GeoCerts and GeoTrust and clarify how the two entities fit together. GeoTrust was founded as an independent Certification Authority ...

TLS (Transport Layer Security) is the official name of the standard used by computer systems that is commonly referred to as SSL. Though once upon a time the SSL (Secured Sockets Layer) standard governed secure online connections, SSL was surpassed by the TLS standard in 1999. Out of convenience and ...

If you're reading this blog post it means you have seen our newly updated GeoCerts.com site. It's our biggest site overhaul in more than a decade, and we designed the site in direct response to feedback from our excellent community of customers, resellers, and site visitors. Some of the main ...

Internet pioneer VeriSign was the first company ever to issue SSL certificates back in the mid-1990s, and it continued to be the brand and market leader in the SSL space until the acquisition of the Verisign digital certificates business by Symantec in 2010. During that time Verisign played a critical ...

Right now there is a bit of a kerfuffle in Certificate World over the mass revocation of roughly 23,000 compromised certificates after the CEO of an SSL reseller attached their private keys to an email. There is a sometimes nuanced, sometimes spirited discussion of the whole thing on a Mozilla ...

What is Certificate Transparency? Certificate Transparency (CT) is an open standard that allows the public to monitor the certificates issued by participating CAs. How it works in a nutshell is to be CT-compliant a CA must add new certificates to a publicly available log that anyone can access to see ...

The green address bar as displayed by Internet Explorer Increase transactions Green address bars have been measured to increase transaction rates on sensitive pages such as shopping carts, login screens, and financial transaction sites. Any place where the visitor is expected to enter a credit card number, login credentials, or ...

Regular readers of this blog will occasionally see references to the CA/Browser Forum. Today we will talk about what the CA/Browser Forum is and why it matters to you. The CA/Browser Forum (CA/B Forum) is an independent body that establishes standards for the practices that digital certificate authorities will follow ...

When we talk about Extended Validation (EV) SSL certificates, we often discuss the "green bar" that appears in popular browsers. But how many of us can really envision the green bar and the difference in user experience between it and an OV or DV SSL certificate? Fortunately your GeoCerts team ...

For many years our customers have found multi-year certificates to be beneficial for both cost and convenience. In particular, site administrators value multi-year certificates because they reduce the amount of administrative overhead required for certificate management. (Less frequent expiration means less certificate management, less frequent key generation, and fewer potential ...

One question we often hear from our customers is why they might consider placing non-transactional pages under SSL. It turns out there are very good reasons for doing so. Advanced attacks can skirt the login Starting all the way back in the 2000's criminals began to realize they could harvest ...

Google recently announced that the Chrome 68 release, scheduled for June 2018, will mark all sites not protected by SSL as “Not secure.” According to Google any HTTP page will be treated as shown. This development matters greatly to just about every commercial web site in production for several reasons: ...

Like most things SSL certificates come in several flavors, brands, and types. There are two basic functions that SSL/TLS certificates provide: one is encryption and the other is trust. Today we're going to talk about certificate trust. Certification Authorities (CAs) like GeoTrust, Symantec and Comodo vouch for the authenticity of ...