Why Encryption is Important?

With so many people in the world, many of them are using the Internet. In fact, as of 2021, there were estimated to be over 4.66 billion users online. That means there’s a lot of things to see online, on over 1.9 billion websites!

There’s always a few bad apples in the bunch, creating bots to steal your information, and that’s where encryption can help. In fact, only a couple years ago, in 2020, there were over 2953 data breaches, making it the worst year ever in cyber crime. Scary, right? Well have no fear, because in this article, you’ll learn why encryption is important, how it works, and more.

Encryption in the case of this article, refers to data encryption for websites and the Internet.

Encryption is the conversion of readable data into an encoded format.

The purpose of encryption is to protect data from being stolen. Types of data that can be encrypted online are: passwords, credit cards, bank accounts, home addresses, social security numbers, and more.

For example, if you’re running an ecommerce store, and you’re accepting credit card payment and sensitive information like addresses and emails, if a website has encryption installed on it, the data that your customer’s submit can’t be seen or filched by hackers. The encryption that most websites use are SSL certificates.

Any site that has a properly installed SSL certificate will have a URL that begins with HTTPS, instead of HTTP.

Encryption is important because your personal data is important. It’s as simple as that. You wouldn’t want someone using your identity, credit card, or banking information, right?

Even Google believes encryption is important. In 2017, Google made it a requirement for website owners to start using SSL, and even added it to their Google Webmaster Guidelines. This is due to the fact that Google only wants to display sites on their search that are safe and secure for anyone to visit.

In fact, even as far back as 2014, Google has been awarding a small boost in search rank to website owners who have turned to using SSL. Also, here at Verpex, we believe your data is important, so we offer free SSL with every web hosting package, including our cloud web hosting.

Now, even though encryption is super important, there’s always a chance that your data could be compromised. Technology is changing and evolving every day, so that also means hackers are getting up to speed on how to crack through the data encryption on a website. This is why, in the case of SSL certificates, there’s a new one issued every so often, that you can change out from the old certificate.

Every form that you fill out, the information is passed through the browser, and into another computer server. There’s a lot in between, that your information can be stolen, if not encrypted.

For example, the information can be stolen if your internet modem or router in your home was compromised. It could be stolen through your network ISP. It could be stolen if the web hosting company for the server collecting your information isn’t secure, or encrypted. The Internet provider and web hosting company usually provide those things, but the individual running the website that you submitted sensitive information to, should also have some type of encryption in network security.

The data that you submit from your end is usually readable, but once the information is passed through the browser, it is turned into text that can’t be comprehended, also known as ciphertext. The text looks like a random string of characters. This string of characters uses a cryptographic key based on mathematical values. The recipient uses the key to decrypt the data, and turns it back into text.

In the case of TLS (Transport Layer Security), which is today’s SSL, the certificate has these keys. The information is briefly encoded and decoded in moments, while processing your form submission.

More than ever, data privacy has become a hot topic since the enactment of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union, and US states like California passing the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA.) Not ensuring that your website visitor’s data privacy is respected, can result in being fined, and even worse if you have a data breach.

So encryption can get with online data privacy in some ways, as it can protect a person’s information from being stolen. It controls what information can be seen, and who can see it. It can even prevent other people from seeing exactly what you are doing online.

Here’s some other ways that encryption can help with online privacy:

1. Encryption secures your devices, like your phone, desktop, or laptop.

2. TLS or SSL certificates help encrypt information being submitted through a website.

3. Messenger devices like Facebook, Yahoo!, and even Whatsapp protects some of your messages from being seen if you select some of the security options provided by the app.

4. Your emails can be encrypted by your email provider.

5. Virtual Private Network, or VPN helps you navigate the internet more securely, by encrypting your online activity, like an extra layer of security separate, and yet on top of your Internet provider.

6. You can use encryption to even erase data. If you encrypt the data first, and get rid of the key, then only the encoded text can be recovered, not the readable data.

If you’re using any, or many of these methods, then you’ve been reaping the benefits of encryption.

As for 2022, 78.7% of websites online use HTTPS. Do you have SSL installed? If not, think about how you feel about online security. More than likely, the people who you know, and even the people who visit your website do think even a little bit about their online security. The more precaution you take with encryption, to ensure your online data privacy and security, as well as others, the more you’re doing the Internet a favor in keeping everyone’s information safe.

There’s a lot of places that offer VPN, SSL certificates, and all sorts of encryption. Some are free and some are at low cost. So, if cost was an excuse, you have none now.