You may be wondering what SSL is and if you need it for your online store? The truth most stores that sell online need it and it is a very important part for selling online.

SSL stans for Secure Sockets Layer and in a nutsell it basically protects any information that is sent to, from and during the order process of your online store. Without it this information is left visible to anyone who knows how to take a look at it.

If your online store has SSL Security then whenever a browser is pointed to your secure domain name an ssl handshake will authenticate the server and the client. It then establishes an encryption method and creates unique key for that session.

Now that a secure session has been created and you can be guaranteed that any information that is sent/inputted at this time is secure. This protects any sensitive information that you may not want in the hands of just anyone(such as credit card information, address, phone number etc…).

To encrypt a message a key is used to alter the original message sent. The key uses a long sequence of algorithm bits to encrypt or decrypt the original message. An algorithm might look like this 00001010 01101001 10011110 00011100 01010101 and depending on how many bits it would have would detemine its length.

An encryption algorithm would then take the original message and the key, and then it would alter the original message using the key bits to create a new encrypted message. To decrypt it a decryption algorithm would take the encrypted message and restore it back to its original state using the key.

The difference between between the bit strength is how long the algorithm is. If it is 40 bit then it would be 40 characters long and so forth.

Today the minimum bit encryption used is 128 which offers 88 additional bits of key length then before when they use to only use a 40-bit. The reason they had to change the bit length was that a 40-bit encryption seemed too easy for hackers to break.

Now with a 128-bit encryption there are a possible 309,485,009,821,345,068,724,781,056 additonal combinations that are required to crack it. Experts say they expert the 128-bit encryption should work well on the internet for at least another 10 years.

So there you have it, a quick and simple breakdown of SSL and why you need it as well as what it does. There are other choices such as using 3rd party payment processors(such as paypal.com or 2checkout.com) but for added protection it is always nice to know that you have SSL protecting you.

Anthony Jewell has over 6 years of experience in Business and Web Development. He Owns http://www.ActiveCheckout.com which offers Ecommerce, Merchant Solutions and Hosting Packages.