With hackers always looking for ways to penetrate web sites to gain access access to personal data that is stored on websites, the need for security and protection of data is only increasing. Secure with Wildcard SSL certificates are favored by a lot of businesses that want to protect both primary and subdomains by the same certificate. Cost and scalability are among the major benefits of a Wildcard SSL. However, the benefits that promise ease and convenience are a risk of breaking fundamental principles of security, such as security, confidentiality and reputational damage.
Are you interested in learning more about the SSL Certificates issued by WC? Continue reading.
What exactly are Wildcard SSL Certificates?
A wildcard certificate can be described as a digital certificate that protects a domain as well as all its subdomains. Prior to the domain’s title, an asterisk and a space are used to signify wildcards. Wildcards are commonly employed as part of Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates to expand SSL protection to subdomains.
A conventional SSL certificate is valid only for one domain, like www.example.com. Wildcard certificates for *.example.com is secured by mail.example.com, vpn.example.com, payment.example.com as well as other domains. Nowadays, any company with multiple subdomains must have an authorization from a wildcard SSL certificates to safeguard its security from criminals and hackers. This is the reason why purchasing as well as installing the wildcard SSL certificate for the subdomain comes into play.
Important Wildcard SSL Benefits
1. Unlimited Subdomain Protection – As stated, a cheap wildcard SSL safeguards an unlimited number of subdomains, as many as your business owns. If you want to add more subdomains to the Wildcard’s terms you don’t have to renew it. New subdomains will be covered automatically too.
2. SSL certificate that helps save the company money. A company that has a number of subdomains has to use an N SSL certificates, and this can result in significant costs for website security. With a wildcard certificates for subdomains a business doesn’t have to be worried about the cost. Companies can acquire an infinite number of subdomains at the same amount as one Wildcard SSL certificate.
This is particularly beneficial particularly for smaller and mid-sized companies (SMBs) because of their lack of resources. Utilizing Wildcard SSL certificatesfor their website with multiple sub-domains, they will be able to secure data and privacy, while still observing their budgetary limitations.
3. SEO or Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Did you realize that Google offers SSL-enabled websites an increase in search rankings? Yes, in accordance with the company’s announcement in 2014 that the SSL was an indicator of ranking, and as the web browser community is working to ensure that encryption is ubiquitous and the power of SSL has increased.
Google places SSL-secured websites higher. Websites can also be marked as unsecure by Google even if there is no SSL encryption is present.
4. The Trust of Users: If contrasted with a website that is unsecure one that is secured has a higher amount of users’ trust and traffic. Customers will place their trust on your site since it is secure to the highest level. Based on the certificate you choose, WildCard SSL provides domain or business validation. It also guarantees credibility of your website by providing evidence that a certification authority (CA) has endorsed your site; therefore, it’s safe for transactions and purchases online.
5. Compatibility: Wildcard certs for Subdomains work with the majority of browsers and servers (desktop as well as mobile). There are many Wildcard service providers provide greater than 99 percent compatibility with browsers which means that customers will enjoy a comfortable browsing experience, and not be confronted with the SSL warning problem.
6. Easy Certificate Management: In lieu of a tedious and lengthy process to manage multiple SSL certificates, a single Wildcard certificate can be installed by a single click to several sub-domains. Expiry, renewal, reissues, etc. should not be tracked in a separate manner for different certificates. Therefore, managing certificates is much easier for companies since they don’t have to hurry to maintain multiple certificates.
7. Instant Issuance: When the CA evaluates your documentation for the company including the domain name, business, and ownership, you will be able to obtain your Wildcard SSL certificate within just two days. The sub-domains of the domain are included in the certificate, and secured. Therefore, there is no waiting period for ensure the security of websites using WC SSL Certificates.
Wildcard SSL Certificates Makes Encryption Cheaper, But Less Secure
Similar to other technologies SSL certificates with Wildcards come with their own limitations. For example Extended confirmation (EV) level of assurance is not accessible to the WC SSL certificates. Secure third and second-level subdomains is a challenge. Other Wildcard certificate risks that outweigh its benefits are:
The primary reason not to use SSL certificates for WC is the fact that they are susceptible to attack by phishing. In the absence of proper monitoring and control the certificate could be used by hackers to gain access to the trust.
In the case of an attacker hacks into your domain, secured through an Wildcard certificate, they could gain the right to create unlimited domains. The most dangerous scenario is that subdomains appear to be legitimate because they’re protected by their Wildcard certificate. In the event of a hacker, they can utilize the subdomains they’re not authorized to use to conduct phishing attacks.
If you have multiple agents managing the different subdomains of your website, Wildcard certificates necessitate sharing your private key. The use of the identical private key across different systems can increase the chance of compromise and unauthorised access.
Certain mobile phones from the past do not recognise that (*) wildcard symbol. In the case of mobiles that aren’t compatible you must obtain one certificate.
Avoid Wildcard SSL Certificate Risks
In fact wildcard SSL certificates are a great alternative as they can save you the cost of maintenance and make it simpler to manage. But, it is important to manage them with care and in a controlled manner. If you experience an attack on your security, to minimize the damage you must make use of a unique certificate that only applies to the domains that it is associated with.
