How to Fix SSL Certificate Errors
An SSL certificate is used to authenticate a website’s identity and secure the transmission of information to and from the server.
This is important because it demonstrates that your website can secure online transactions. This makes people feel safer when buying online and sending data via forms with an SSL.
Certificates like an SSL aid in the encryption of private information, including credit card numbers and usernames, and transmit sensitive data. This article will show how to check if your site has an SSL certificate and fix errors related to it.
How to Check if Your Site has an SSL Certificate
There is an easy way to determine whether or not a website uses SSL certificates: the HTTPS protocol specifier will appear in the web URL of any site that uses the SSL certificate system.
HTTP adds the SSL security layer to HTTP. So if you want to know if a site is secure, look for these two criteria:
- The URL of your site begins with https://www.yoursitename.com.
- A padlock icon appears in your browser’s address bar. Clicking on it provides further details about the site’s security.
How to Fix SSL Certificate Errors
- Inactive Certificate
When a browser gets an SSL certificate whose validity has not yet begun, the browser displays an inactive certificate error. Additionally, the certificate will be rejected if the client machine’s time is more than five minutes out of sync. This happens most frequently with API clients.
Fix: Make sure that the SSL certificate is replaced with a fresh certificate with a valid start time. Also, verify the client’s machine clock and server are in sync.
- Certificate Authority isn’t Trusted
This error means the root certificate is missing from the local trusted certificate storage. Browsers can’t trust a server’s certificate when they can’t locate any locally trusted root certificates. In addition, browsers are unable to trust self-signed certificates.
Fix: Manually add the self-signed certificate to the browser’s trust store.
- Revoked Certificate
This error will occur if any of your website’s leaf or intermediate certificates are revoked and appear on the revoked certificates list.
Fix: A new certificate should be used to replace the revoked one.
Tip: You can use SSL certificate monitoring tools to monitor your website.
- Expired Certificate
Most SSL certificate problems can be traced back to this one root cause. This error indicates that the SSL certificate’s validity time has ended and it cannot be used anymore.
Fix: Replace any outdated SSL certificates on your web server with a valid new one.
Do I need an SSL Certificate?
You’ll need an SSL certificate if you’re running an e-commerce site or sending sensitive data. An SSL certificate and encrypted connection are required if your website has:
- User authentication to access the restricted data.
- Analyzes and manages financial data (online orders, credit card numbers, bank accounts, etc.).
- Personally identifiable data (e.g.,social security numbers) storage.
- A wide range of medical and legal data types.
- Anything that might be considered proprietary or confidential by a third party.
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