Can you trust dv ssl certificates for financial transactions?

Certification Authorities (CA) follows the practice of issuing SSL certificates as per the guidelines set up by the industry standards groups. These guidelines are different for each certificate type, Extended Validation (EV), Organization Validation (OV) and Domain Validation (DV). Before issuing certificates, CAs issuing certificates that demonstrate identity verification are required to check with specific third parties to ascertain the official name of the organization and where it is located.

The CA also needs to take further steps to get in touch with the requesting organization to confirm that they have, indeed, requested the certificate and that the requester has been authorized to receive the certificate on behalf of the organization. When an end-user visits a website that uses an EV or OV certificate, they can verify that their private data is being transmitted securely to the intended recipient.

Certificates that are issued by adopting EV verification processes undergo the most rigorous vetting process that earns them a lock icon, company name, and the country ID in the address bar of most web browsers. The name of the entity that is in control of the website verified using the OV guidelines is displayed as the identity in the details of the certificate. Unfortunately, all the certificates do not meet the same verification standards, and it is essential to know the difference.

The DV Quandary

Domain validated certificates are usually issued using an automated process, which only verifies that the person who is requesting the certificate is in control of the domain that they want a certificate for. This is a tactic that allows issuance of a quick certificate with minimal to zero cost.

As you may well guess, a DV SSL certificate does not contain any identifying information in the organization name field. Usually, this value repeats the domain name or says Persona Not Validated. Said in another way, although the DV certificate encrypts the transaction using SSL, there is no way for the end-user to trust the certificate to confirm that the data is being transmitted to the intended entity.

A DV certificate verifies that the website you are visiting is encrypted. It does not provide any identity assurance and is not at all recommended for e-commerce or online financial transactions.

The Need for Higher Security

Online banking happens to be an industry that needs the maximum possible amount of security – during the login process, while online transactions are being carried out, during money transfers, working on other aspects, etc. If there is any gap in security, it is likely that cybercriminals may breach the information of the user as well as they can get access to the account of the user.

A banking organization must take care of the privacy issues and the security of customer’s online transactions along with their sensitive information. The way they do it is by encrypting the information for which they have to adopt the best level of security provided by SSL certificate encryption technology.

Why EV SSL Is A Must for Financial Transactions

In the case of Domain Validation and Organization Validation SSL certificates, the customer needs to pass through a simple verification process. However, in the case of Extended Validation SSL certificate, the customer needs to pass-through rigorous verification and toughest domain and business verification process, which ensures that the business is a genuine and verified entity that can be trusted.

An EV SSL certificate shows the name of the organization and the URL is marked with a green address bar. This is the number one security indicator that assures customers over the internet. It signals that the business is legitimate, and that the user need not worry about the privacy and security of their personal and sensitive information.

An EV SSL certificate comes with a 256-bit advanced level of encryption technology, which not only protects the browser server communications, but it also blocks browser alerts which may sometimes be misleading and protect the website from phishing and other forms of cyber-attacks.

Differences Between the EV SSL and DV SSL Certificate

So, DV SSL certificates, and for that matter, even the OV SSL certificates should not be trusted for financial transactions.

Jitendra Dabhi is blogger at Tech Untouch and The Windows 10 Tips. He is a passionate blogger and turned blogging into a money making ideas for smart passive income.