There was a big ransom-ware attack globally on May 12, 2017. It made the front page, above the fold in the New York Times. The Times ran a companion piece: “Protecting Your Digital Life in 8 Easy Steps”. HTTPS for website owners becomes more critical every day.
Included in the 8 steps was this:
5. Use a browser plug-in called HTTPS Everywhere.
Mr. Marlinspike recommended this plug-in, developed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital security organization. It ensures that you are using the secure form of websites, meaning that your connection to the site will be encrypted and that you will be protected from various forms of surveillance and hacking.
And this is a good time to note that you should always find out whether the Wi-Fi network you are using is secure. Public networks — and even private networks without security keys — often are not.
We’ve shared this article previously from Google: “Secure your site with HTTPS: Protect your site and your users.”
As of January 2017, Google is now warning visitors to sites that do NOT have secured sites – and they are also penalizing those sites with lower search engine results. “Imminent: Non-HTTPS Sites Labeled “Not Secure” by Chrome.”
If you have a web site that does not display https: in front of the name and a green padlock lock this in the Chrome browser bar:
Or a gray padlock in the Safari browser bar:
then Contact Us to help you secure your site and not scare your site visitors aware. Bonus: you will have better search engine results with Google, as well.