Penn State is registered with the InCommon Certificate Service, a means for IT partners and the University community to easily and affordably obtain digital certificates for the safe sharing of online resources, such as the securing of departmental Web servers.
The InCommon Certificate Service provides unlimited SSL, encryption and code signing PKI certificates for all domains owned by Penn State University for one fixed annual fee, allowing Penn State to issue certificates based on technical and security needs. The certificates are generated through Sectigo, a trusted commercial certificate authority.
What are the benefits of an SSL certificate?
- User privacy and data integrity: The core function of an SSL certificate is to protect server-client communication. On installing SSL, every bit of information is encrypted.
- SSL Improves Customer Trust: The certificate is signed by Comodo’s certificate authority, which is one of a limited number of certificate authorities automatically trusted by major browsers.
When should I use an SSL certificate?
- Services that require users to authenticate
- Services that display or ask the user to provide sensitive or confidential data
- When the ability to confirm the authenticity of the server is a requirement