what is ssl certificate https

An SSL certificate is a digital certificate that is issued by a trusted third-party organization known as a certificate authority (CA). The certificate contains information about the website's identity, including the domain name, the company name, and the public key that will be used to encrypt data transmitted between the website and the user's browser.

When a user connects to a website using HTTPS, the website's SSL certificate is presented to the user's browser. The browser then verifies the SSL certificate with the issuing CA to ensure that it is valid and has not been tampered with. Once the certificate has been verified, the browser and website can establish a secure connection, allowing data to be transmitted securely.

SSL certificates come in different types, with different levels of verification and encryption strength. The most common types of SSL certificates include domain-validated (DV) certificates, organization-validated (OV) certificates, and extended validation (EV) certificates.

DV certificates only validate the domain name, while OV certificates verify both the domain name and the organization that owns it. EV certificates provide the highest level of validation and require more rigorous checks to verify the identity of the organization, providing users with additional assurance that they are interacting with a legitimate website.