How SSL, HTTPS and Certificates Works?

Simplest guide of how SSL, HTTPS, and Certificate works between client and server

Hello guys, basic knowledge of SSL, HTTPS, and Certificates is a must for any programmer, especially those who are working in financial and security-sensitive applications, which are also accessed over the internet.

In the past, I have talked about common system design questions like Rate Limiter, Database Scaling, API Gateway vs Load Balancer and Horizontal vs Vertical Scaling, Forward proxy vs reverse proxy as well common System Design problems and concepts like Single Point Failure, and in this article we will talk about HTTPS and SSL, another important topic from security point of view.

In this article, I am giving you an overview of these three key concepts and How SSL, HTTPS, and certificates work together, to provide secure communication between client and server.

Security is a major concern while developing web applications, which are accessible via HTTP protocol.

Since HTTP protocol transfers data in plain text format, it's not safe for transferring sensitive information like username, password, social security number (SSN), or credit card details for online shopping.

The HTTP protocol also doesn't guarantee that a website, you are communicating is the one who claims i.e. if URL redirection is enabled then instead of the genuine website you may be routed to malicious websites and HTTP can't prevent or alert you, but there is HTTPS which can save you.

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How SSL and HTTPS works?

HTTPS and SSL addresses these two issues.