GeoTrust is the world's second largest digital certificate provider. More than 100,000 customers in over 150 countries trust GeoTrust to secure online transactions and conduct business over the Internet. Our range of digital certificate and trust products enable organizations of all sizes to maximize the security of their digital transactions cost-effectively.

Secure Socket Layer (SSL) is a protocol developed by Netscape in 1996 which quickly became the method of choice for securing data transmissions across the Internet. SSL is an integral part of most Web browsers and Web servers and makes use of the public-and-private key encryption system developed by Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman.

In order to make an SSL connection, the SSL protocol requires that a server should have a digital certificate installed. A digital certificate is an electronic file that uniquely identifies individuals and servers. Digital certificates serve as a kind of digital passport or credential which authenticate the server prior to the SSL session being established.

Typically, digital certificates are signed by an independent and trusted third party to ensure their validity. The "signer" of a certificate is known as a Certification Authority (CA), such as VeriSign, thawte and GeoTrust.

If your site sends or receives sensitive information, including accepting payment information, account information, or if your site includes a log-on feature, then your site should be secured with a certificate. Other applications of SSL Certificates include sites that utilize an API, database, and email.