Face it, it’s the digital age and cybersecurity is a must. According to Hiscox Cyber-readiness report, 68 percent of small businesses experienced a security threat in the last 12 months. If you’ve got a WordPress website for your business, security — including WordPress hosting + SSL — is a topic you need to take seriously. Why?
Hackers tend to focus on the most popular systems.
That is why Windows gets more viruses than Macs. The popularity of WordPress makes it a target — often by malicious hackers and spammers. More than 30 percent of the web is running on WordPress. And recent statistics show that more than 28 percent of website administrators across the web use WordPress.
So, if you are using WordPress, especially if you are doing WordPress commerce, you really need to think about security.
In addition, beginning in July 2018, Google Chrome 68 will mark all HTTP sites as “Not Secure.” Even if you only have a simple blog or online brochure site, you need HTTPS to prevent the Not Secure message from being displayed to website visitors.
Fortunately, technology, such as SSL Certificates and Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS), exists to protect data entered into a browser as it flows from server to server. These technologies can be complex under the hood, but are now very simple for GoDaddy WordPress Hosting users to add.
SSL technology enables two prominent security indicators of an encrypted site:
- Green Lock icon: This icon appears next to your domain name when your site is protected by an SSL certificate — the protocol that provides communications security over a network.
- HTTPS: This is essentially a protected version of HTTP, which provides authentication for a website and its associated server.
However, you can’t have one without the other. This means that as soon as they’re both implemented, data transferred between servers is protected as fully as possible.
Implementing SSL in your WordPress Hosting used to be difficult — but things are different now and adding a GoDaddy SSL is a piece of cake. One click is all it takes.
How to get an SSL Certificate for your WordPress Hosting
There are many SSL options for WordPress depending on your needs, but the most commonly used SSL certificates are one of the following three types:
Domain Validation (DV): This certificate simply verifies you as the owner of the domain.
Organization Validation (OV): Along with verifying the domain, this certificate also proves that your organization is legitimate.
Extended Validation (EV): With this certificate, you offer the highest level of security assurance to your customers. All applicants must pass a strict vetting process.
GoDaddy offers all of these solutions.
On the whole, the more sensitive the data you process is, the greater security level you’ll need to protect it. Its strong 2048-bit encryption will ensure all data and transactions on your website are secure. However, keep in mind that higher security comes with an additional cost. The level you need is up to you, but we’d recommend that if you deal with customer financial or healthcare data, anything other than an EV SSL certificate would be risky.
Again, GoDaddy has your WordPress + SSL needs covered with all of these certificate options:
- Wildcard SSL Certificate
- Extended Validation SSL Certificate
- SAN SSL Certificate
- Organization Validation SSL Certificate
Make sure you get the right trusted SSL Certificate.
