Online security has come up as the source of major concerns for businesses and private internet users alike. This year, we’ve seen a ransomware attack against a government website in Canada. TaskRabbit was hacked. Millions of documents containing sensitive personal information were hacked, leaked, or left unguarded against various attacks. Businesses should do whatever they can to ensure the safety of data they gather and store. Their customers depend on the businesses they use online to keep their information safe and secure. Create a secure connection whenever a customer tries to access their website. If this isn’t something your business is already doing, you better hurry up and implement it, otherwise, you’ll have Google on your back about it.
The July Google Chrome Update
Google has been pushing website admins and owners into implementing secure connection technology for some time now. Applying a security certificate helped websites with their SEO, and websites had their secure version brought up by default when accessed through Google. But in July, Google is making an additional step in the fight for making you make the internet safer.
As of the July Google Chrome update, the browser will explicitly state in the address bar. A website is not secure if it doesn’t have the capabilities to establish a secure connection. For your business website, the implications of the new feature are grave. If you have an online store, for example, having a “not secure” sign appear above your website can drastically reduce the trust your potential customers have in your business. Any type of business can be affected, especially the website that require users to leave some kind of personal data.
How to Fix the Issue
Google Chrome is a very popular browser. Some would even argue that, between users of Android and other operating systems, it might be the most popular browser in the world. That means that most of your customers will see the security warning if you don’t do something about it.
The thing you can do is simple — your website needs to have a security certificate in place. If you don’t have one, all you need to do is install it. In most cases, your website’s hosting service provider will be able to help you. If that’s not an option, you should contact your website administrator or the company that built your website. You’ll know that you’ve succeeded once you access your website and you see an ‘s’ after the ‘http’ in the address bar.
Why Is That ‘S’ so Important?
The ‘s’ in ‘https’ stands for ‘secure’. It means that every bit of information your website and its visitor’s exchange is encrypted. This makes it very difficult for third parties to listen to the conversation. Usually, they wouldn’t be able to hear anything important. But if your website requires its visitors to leave any kind of important information — name, email address, date of birth, credit card number — it becomes a target for hackers who will find this information valuable.
Installing an SSL certificate to your website will make it impractical for the hackers to try to listen in on the information exchange. And since the bad actors are more active online today than they ever were before, you should suppose that they’ll try to listen in to any interesting conversation between the website and the browser. If your business values its customers (and its bottom line), you will do what it takes to keep the data safe. And it will also get Google off your back.
