By now, you’ve seen that most websites have switched over to using security. At one time, it was only the larger companies that used https on their sites. Or shopping carts. You can see who is secure when you look at the little lock at the top in the address bar. Most people used to look for the lock when they made a purchase on the web. Now secure websites are for everyone.
In the Google Chrome browser, you will see “Not secure” in place of a lock if there is no SSL. You will also know it’s insecure if there is not certificate and you try to go use https instead of http in the site address. In many cases you will see a small letter “i” in a circle. This means you can click it for more information. Once you click it, you may see something like this.
A site would be insecure if the secure certificate is expired. Other things that may cause a site to be insecure is if the webpage is pulling in an image from an insecure site or just using http instead of https in the address of the image. There are also other factors such as stylesheets, javascripts, or other files that may not be contained on your server but put on the page.
Chrome can be a little more fussy. We found out this week that if a form, like a “Join our maillist” form links to another page somewhere else that is insecure, it will let you know if you know how to use developer tools. So a page that may perfectly fine in another browser will show as insecure in Chrome.
In Firefox, they don’t drill down as deep and tell you next page visited could be insecure so the same page could show up as perfectly secure. In Firefox, if something on the page is insecure, you can tell right away. You will see a yellow triangle over the lock. That would mean that not everything on the page comes from a secure source.
Total Production can help you secure your website. Technologies are constantly changing. Some are going by the wayside totally or newer technologies are taking over. Contact us!