On the web, many developers and technology enthusiasts will remember April, 2014 for the rest of their lives, as will millions of webmasters all across the world. A global security breach in an public open-source library called OpenSSL was discovered, and it shook everyone who crossed its path.

You can read more about Heartbleed on the official website, as well as take a look at this explanation of what it is and how it works. It was the nastiest security bug in many, many years and hopefully will stay that way for decades to come. Although, conspiracy theories don't seem to think that way.

Secure Socket Layer (SSL) is known as a way of protecting the data that is being transmitted through your website, as to give you and your customers a layer of security and protection. SSL usually means that whatever the user does on the website, stays within his own judgement and no 3rd party can interfer with whatever it is he is doing.

A couple of weeks ago, Google announced that it would begin taking HTTPS more seriously and would actually award webmasters with better rankings if they decided to switch over to a secure connection using SSL.

Security is a top priority for Google. We invest a lot in making sure that our services use industry-leading security, like strong HTTPS encryption by default . That means that people using Search, Gmail and Drive, for example, automatically have a secure connection to Google. Most SSL/TLS companies will provide the same quality certificates that others would, though the prices seem to differ drastically and, a lot of the client bases for these customers have come because they're recognized by popular brands online. Look for a medium priced solution that suits your needs. Here are a few suggestions that we recommend, and know others would too. Important to Remember It can take anywhere from one day to three weeks for a fully certified SSL certificate to be issued for your business website, and generally online stores will have to go through the verification process because, at the end of the day, they're dealing with real customers and their money and privacy is at stake. Always make sure the company you're purchasing a certificate from is actually providing a solid support line, through which you can contact the company at any given time. SSL Certificate for Shopify Customers As there are so many Shopify customers not only on our website, but all across the wide web – we thought we would clear up the following question: do you need to purchase an SSL certificate for your Shopify store? Here is the answer: Nope! Unlike other ecommerce systems, you do not need to purchase an additional SSL certificate to use Shopify. All Shopify stores include a 128 bit SSL certificate that is used by the store shopping cart. there you have it, one more thing that proves that Shopify is a true leader in eCommerce. SSL Certificates from Symantec Symantec is one of the leading companies for the SSL market, and provide an incredible service at a reasonable price. It is one of the most popular SSL providers for a large proportion of online stores, and loved by major corporations and businesses. Not all SSL is the same because not all CAs are the same. Founded as VeriSign in 1995, Symantec supports the world’s largest and most critical certificate deployments. The Symantec team use the same infrastructure as the DNS that supports .com on the Internet. SSL Certificate from GeoTrust Just like Symantec, GeoTrust is also a very well-known SSL provider that focuses mainly on providing direct and specific SSL services (unlike Symantec, which focuses on everything related to customer security), their pricing is fair – but, it provides you with benefits such as up to $1.5M warranty that is surely going to put your heart to rest. 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. The range of their digital certificate and trust products enable organizations of all sizes to maximize the security of their digital transactions cost-effectively. The Right SSL Certificate for Your eCommerce Business There is a high chance that your domain registrar is actually capable of providing you with an SSL certificate as well, I know that Namecheap offers such deals; and while they're quite cheap and usually get activated rather quickly, they can provide warranties of reasonable sums. (I think it's $15k for Namecheap.) You should always analyze and think over the things that you actually need securing, and what kind of data is going to be getting processed through your pages.

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