When you plan to buy a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate for your website, you need to reach to a Certification Authority (CA). In this article, we’ll be describing what it is and the type of certificates it issues.
What Is A Certificate Authority (CA)?
A Certification Authority (CA), issues digital certificates to digitally sign electronic documents. CA is critical component of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). The certificates issues by CA are used by client browsers to authenticate web content. In this age of secure web, HTTPS sites are growing fastly. To make these websites secure, SSL certificate is the primary requirement and CA issues these certificate to clients upon their request. Usually, SSL certificates are associated with the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol to encrypt and authenticate data flow on HTTPS protocol. Hence they are sometimes referred to as SSL/TLS certificates or, simply, TLS certificates.
Primary Work of Certificate Authority (CA)
The primary work of Certification Authority (CA) is to issue SSL certificates. Apart from this, it can also act as a trusted third-party. A CA’s role can be also be found in private and managed PKI deployments.
Mainly CA issues following type of SSL certificates:
1. Domain Validated (DV) certificates: These certificates are issued to applicant on the basis of proved domain ownership. The issuance rate is fast as less methods of verification are involved.
2. Organization Validated (OV) certificates: If the certificate applicant belongs to an organization, or company, these certificates are issued to them. It provides next level of organizational assurance. These certificates are issued after cross verification of details submitted by applicants and may require telephonic conversation to confirm such details. The issuance of these certificate may take more time than DV certificates.
3. Extended Validation (EV) certificates: These certificate usually provides highest level of assurance to applicants. Its issuance involves in-person interaction and record of their statements. After the detailed verification, CA can issue such certificate.
Popular CAs across the globe
Following are popular CA’s, which issues SSL certificates:
- IdenTrust
- DigiCert
- Sectigo
- GoDaddy
- GlobalSign
- Certum
- Actalis
- Entrust
- Secom
- Let’s Encrypt
- Trustwave
- WISeKey Group
- StartCom