THE education site for computer science and ICT
Digital Certificate
A digital certificate is a method of guaranteeing that a web site is who they say they are.
It sounds odd, after all how can a web site not be the real thing? But there are criminals that may produce a fake web site that looks exactly like the real one, then if you are unlucky enough to end up on the fake site, you unknowingly supply your credit and account details.
To help avoid this, the real business will purchase a digital certificate from a 'certificate authority'.
The digital certificate looks like a long string of digital numbers.
This certificate is displayed when you click on the small padlock you see in the bottom right of your web browser when you are on a secure site.
Digital Certificates are also commonly used within companies in order to encrypt emails. This ensures that when a person reads the email they can be confident it comes from the genuine person.
Challenge see if you can find out one extra fact on this topic that we haven't already told you
Click on this link: Digital Certificate
2020-10