How Wildcard SSL Certificates Works?

A Wildcard SSL Certificate spares you cash and time by verifying your domain and unlimited sub-domains on a single certificate. Wildcard certificates work a similar way as a standard SSL Certificate, enabling you to verify the connection between your site and your client's Internet browser.

In this article, we will talk about the Wildcard SSL Certificate. SSL certificate safeguards data from a third party by ensuring secure link/connection between a server and a browser. But, when it comes to securing all sub-domains along with main domain, the Wildcard SSL certificate is needed.

Difference between SSL Certificate and Wildcard SSL Certificate

Wildcard SSL Certificate secures the URL of your website as well as its sub-domain, which can be numerous. Let us assume that you own a site www.mybusiness.com. If you get a Wildcard SSL Certificate, for this particular site, then it will not only secure this particular URL but also, all other sub-domains like blog.mybusiness.com, shop.mybusiness.com, onlinestore.mybusiness.com, etc., provided these sub-domains are linked with the main domain. Whereas, a regular SSL Certificate normally secures single fully qualified domain name. In short, if you own or manage multiple sites/pages that exist on the same domain/ main domain, Wildcard SSL Certificate is what you need for complete internet security and at a better price.

Working of Wildcard SSL Certificate

• When an organization applies for Wildcard SSL Certificate, it means that it owns multiple website or subdomains.

• When CA (Certification Authority) issues a certificate, the organization must ensure that all subdomains are associated with the main domain else it will affect the level of security.

• Once the validation of the domain and the subdomain is checked, Wildcard SSL Certificate will provide the same level of security to the main domain and all other subdomains associated with it.

• Wildcard SSL Certificate will look for all the possible subdomain names and will provide security to them. For example, a Wildcard SSL Certificate is issued to *.mybusiness.com, where ‘*’ represents all the subdomains associated with the main domain and in return Wildcard SSL Certificate will provide security to all the possible subdomains suffixed ‘.mybusiness.com’