SSL Encryption algorithms explained

There is a lot of information about what the best SSL certificate is for your webshop or website. But what does the encryption of the SSL certificates really mean?

We are going to explain that in this blog post.

What does an SSL certificate do?

SSL certificates are nowadays known to every website builder and there is a big chance that this is already active on your web hosting.In this blog post, we will take a closer look at the different SSL algorithms.

Perhaps you know that the SSL certificates are meant to encrypt data entered on the website and to protect against malicious persons who want to retrieve your data.Without an SSL certificate your credit card or IDEAL data can be stolen.

The encryption is done with an algorithm so that your data is sent over the Internet in a safe way.This security works in a way that the data between sender and receiver is encrypted with an algorithm.

And only the person with access to the key can figure out exactly what it says.However, there are also different types of algorithms that are used to encrypt in a mathematical way.
Below we will explain a bit more about these algorithms.

Different kinds of SSL encryptions

There are 2 different types of SSL encryption that can be divided into two different groups.Symmetric encryption and Asymmetric encryption.

In these two groups, there are a whole bunch of different types of encryption which would be too much for a blog post.Hence, in this blog post we will put our focus on 2 methods.

Symmetric encryption

Symmetric encryption is done in a single way, the same key that encrypted the encryption can also be used to unlock the encryption again.As is often the case, this has its advantages and disadvantages.But first, let's explain the process with an example.

You have two people who want to send letters to each other. John from Almere and Marieke from Lelystad.Of course they don't want anyone else to be able to read their letters.

So they are going to use encryption to make this difficult for others to read.The encryption they use they want to be able to read with the same key.

Here we can move each letter used in the letter up seven places in the alphabet.And if you want to read it again all the letters that you see slide back again seven places.

In the same way Julius Caesar did this over two thousand years ago.With the key or in this case the technique is the rule of seven places.The letters can then be moved back seven places so that they are readable again.

The encryption methods used on the Internet and on our hosting for SSL certificates and encrypting your personal data are of course a lot more advanced than that.Current methods would require an army of powerful supercomputers to crack.Even then, with today's technology, it would take several hundred years!

Because of encryption, we can confidently order that little item you were missing from a web shop from the other side of the world without risk.

Plus points of Symmetric Encryption

The beauty of Symmetric Encryption is that it is simple, one key can be used on either side to decrypt the message.This enables the encryption and decryption with the same key.

The advantages of this are that Symmetric encryption is faster than the Asymmetric encryption. Less computing power is required to make the encryption and hence less bandwidth is used.

So when a lot of data needs to be encrypted or speed is an important issue Symmetric encryption is chosen in most cases.The most common method used for SSL certificates that are issued is the AES Symmetric encryption.

The abbreviation stands for Advanced Encryption System, so it is one of the most common algorithms.This was introduced in 2001 to replace its predecessor DES encryption.

AES first converts the plain text sent during a transmission into blocks.Each block is then encrypted in different ways.With sub-processes and bytes, flipping sequences and columns to make the original text unreadable and thus encrypted.

The bottom line is that AES encryption is still a good option that is safe to use.In addition, it is fast, extremely flexible as it is used by a lot of services, Including WIFI security.

This is a lot more secure because of the longer and more complex encryption method.

Asymmetric encryption

Asymmetric encryption is not a one-way street like Symmetric encryption is.The same key cannot be used to unlock the data on the other side, or the recipient of the data.

Therefore, with this encryption method, they use 2 types of keys to encrypt and unlock the data.One of the keys is a public key and one is a private key.

The public key is given to the visitor who enters his login information on your website, for example.And the second key, the private key, ensures that you can then also unlock it.

With larger projects and multiple users who need to view the same information, it is often no longer advisable to give everyone the same key that can unlock everything.Consider, for example, different levels in WordPress websites.

For example, one user takes care of the blog posts but the other has nothing to do with them and therefore no access to them.That same system of different layers is also applied to Asymmetric encryption.

Plus points of Asymmetric Encryption

So with multiple end and start points, Asymmetric encryption is better at security than Symmetric encryption.Not everyone has the same key with this method.

The most commonly used algorithm is the RSA Encryption.Not only is this encryption used for SSL certificates but also for crypto currencies like Bitcoin.

In use and encryption of the most lowly 768 bit encryption on RSA basis was attempted by a group of researchers in 2010 to crack the key.This took 1500 computational years spread over an army of supercomputers to crack.

And then you can consider that most RSA keys are now encrypted with 2048 bits!Due to the more complex methods of encryption, this does take longer to load over the Internet.

Fortunately, these days we're only talking about a few milliseconds which makes a difference.So more and more Symmetric SSL certificates are replaced by Asymmetric SSL certificates.

If you have any questions you can always check if there is a chat employee present.If no one is available you can create a ticket using our ticket system.Contact via Facebook or Twitter is also possible.