What Is HTTPS? How Does It Secure Your Connection?

Last updated: July 10, 2023 Reading time: 2 minutes
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What Is HTTPS How Does It Secure Your Connection

With the constant increase in social networking, a vast amount of sensitive information is being transmitted through websites that a cybercriminal can easily access.

To protect the personal information of its users, Twitter and Facebook have recently acted and set up an optional secure connection, namely HTTPS. This article will help you gain knowledge regarding HTTPS and enable it on any website that supports it.

What does the Acronym HTTPS Stand for

The acronym HTTPS stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure. HTTPS is a secure form of HTTP. It is the protocol used to secure the data exchanged between, say, a browser and a website. The ‘S’ at the end of HTTPS is for ‘SECURE,’ ensuring that all the data exchanged is encrypted. HTTPS is an essential protocol that secures online business information like online shopping and transactions. A padlock icon in the address bar indicates that the site is used as an HTTPS connection.

The cryptographic protocols used for network connection encryption are SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) and TLS (Transport Layer Security). HTTPS uses one of these two protocols to multiply the website’s security.

How does HTTPS secure your connection?

HTTPS is a service that can only be enabled when offered by websites. Many websites provide this service, but sadly, most do not offer HTTPS by default, and even converting HTTP to HTTPS is troublesome and therefore is dismissed. 

However, the HTTPS Everywhere browser extension, provided by Electron Frontier Foundation (EFF) for free, enforces SSL connections on numerous websites and lets you use HTTPS instead of HTTP whenever possible. Many browsers like Chrome and Firefox utilize this extension and Opera to secure crucial Web traffic from prying eyes.

HTTPS Everywhere stores hundreds of websites supporting HTTPS. If you are unable to locate any website on that list, you can manually add it. Likewise, if you want to exempt a website, you can undo the green checkmark and prevent HTTPS Everywhere from making a secure connection. It is important to note that the defaults of the website itself won’t be nullified, and for some tasks, it may still affect a secure connection.

Use HTTPS is another similar browser extension available on Chrome and currently supports Twitter and Facebook.

Conclusion

You are currently trapped in a system where whatever you do is monitored. Privacy has vanished completely, and social networking is bound to leave a digital trail. If you want to make your data and network security and enjoy the benefits of the internet, then you must stand up to the challenge of securing your data.

To be more precise, your financial and personal information must not, at any cost, fall into the hands of a hacker. For this purpose, you require a secure connection immediately!

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About the Author

Rutaba Rais is Editor at Be Encrypted with focus on Technology and Internet Security. Apart from her Healthcare background, she has interests in Lifestyle, Journalism, and expressing her opinion by her writing. You can follow her on Twitter.

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