In the following post, we’ll talk about a crucial subject. It has to do with some websites that are utilized by people and owned by governments but are not secure, and the government is still utilizing them.
It may sound strange, like how is it possible for a government website to not be secure. It is what it is, though. These websites are popular and often visited. People share their personal information in the millions. These websites continue to deliver pages from the server to your computer using the http protocol.
We will address the dilemma of “Are all governments site safe” in this blog post, as well as the problems with the http protocol. The reason why the https protocol used by people? What are its benefits and drawbacks. Let’s get started.
Problem with Not Secure Government Websites
Firstly, let’s look at what “Securing the website” means.
Different protocols are used by websites to transfer pages from the server to your computer. One such protocol is http (Hypertext Transfer Protocol). You may have noticed that many website links start with http://domain.com, where the initial letter of every website is “http”.
It is not secure and private connection, therefore anyone can easily use the traffic snippet to see what you are sending to the web server. There is no encrypted path for this transfer of data from your website to the server.
If any sensitive data like bank account information or any passwords is saved in the cookies and is not encrypted over HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol secure), Man-in-the-middle attacks may be performed.
There was one Government website which was open to attack. It is Passport Seva, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India – This site had following URL: http://passportindia.gov.in. You can see the URL begins with HTTP means your connection is not secure. However Now it is secured and transfer data over HTTPS protocol.
How can Websites Remain Safe?
The simple answer is using HTTPS protocol or using SSl certificate. In September 2016, the Google Chromium project announced its goal of supporting a more secure web with a path to HTTPS everywhere, and in January 2017, it began taking steps to make this goal a reality. Google announced that they will point websites without HTTPS as not secured.
It appears that Google’s approach is successful. In reality, the number of Authoritative websites without SSL certificate has been rapidly Decreasing.
What is HTTPS?
HTTPS stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure. It is a protocol for safeguarding interaction between two systems, like the web server and your browser.
HTTPS uses the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) or Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocols, HTTPS creates an encrypted connection between the web server and the browser. The most recent SSL version is TLS.
Now this highly secured HTTPS protocol provides a very secure and encrypted path for sending data to server. Even if anybody trap the data in between, they cannot see it because it is unreadable in the form of $%18+# . So you would be sure that your personal data is secure.
This HTTPs is achived by secure socket layer (SSL) certificate that we will discuss in other blog posts.
Watch the video below to know how HTTPS works.
The Disadvantages of Using HTTPS?
HTTPS has a lot of merits but has few Demerits as given below.
1. Cost
When switching to HTTPS, an SSL certificate is a requirement. Although the SSL certificates are frequently issued by the website hosting firm, they must be updated annually for an additional fee. There are other ways to get a free SSL certificate, however doing so is not recommended due to security concerns.
2. Performance
To encrypt and decrypt data over HTTPS connections, many calculations are required. Data is initially encrypted, then sent to a server where it is again transformed into a human-understandable form. As a result, the website’s speed is decreased due to the delayed response time.
3. Ease of Access
Some proxy and firewall systems prevent users from accessing HTTPS websites. Both purposeful and unintentional behavior can result in this. If it wasn’t deliberate, the admins might have overlooked setting up HTTPS access. This can occasionally be done on purpose as a security precaution.
4. Various Content
Your site will start downloading files via HTTP rather than HTTPS if the setting is off. Customers will finally be informed about vulnerable content as a result.
5. Calculating Costs
As a result of the work required to encrypt and decode data, both servers and browsers have increased computing overhead. These overheads are often imperceptible because of the extra latency a connection setup emits. If your HTTPS connection supports multiple HTTPS connections at once, though, this could become a problem.
Benefits of using HTTPS on every Domain.Gov Websites?
Below are just a few of the many benefits that the https protocol brings to your website’s security.
1. Encryption
One of the key benefits of HTTPS is data encryption. Data is always encrypted when being transmitted via HTTPS. Therefore, the information is quite secure. The information has already been encrypted, so even if the hackers are successful in gaining it, they will be unable to utilize it.
2. Protection
HTTPS does not save any user information on the client system, in contrast to HTTP, which does. Data theft is therefore impossible in public spaces.
3. Verification
A certificate guarantees that their policies and the website’s policies are always consistent. Users will be warned that the connection is dangerous if this does not happen. Because of this, if you adopt HTTPS, users may be confident that their data is sent only to trustworthy websites. Potential clients who are looking to do business online will feel more trusted as a result.
4. Data Validation
The data validation step is carried out by handshaking in HTTPS. Every data transfer that takes place is authenticated, including those involving its component parts like the sender and receiver. Only after the validations are successful can data transfer occur. If not, the actions are halted.
5. Reliability
Because of the green padlock that appears on the URL, visitors can always be sure that a website is security-conscious. When a website is reliable, customers will probably be ready to make purchases. This makes your website Trustworthy and you can be the first choice for your Target customers.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s)
Conclusion
Governments sites generally provides services to large audience. They are not like Blog or any other Portfolio Websites, Where there is less data transfer between the server and Computer. Therefore this Website must be secured with encrypted Path of Data Transfer to avoid Data breach or data loss.
This can be achieved by using HTTPs protocol. This blog posts clear all your fundamentals on securing a website either it be a Government or your personal website.
One Comment