VeriSign Will Start Offering 3-Year SSL Certificates Next Month

In a bid to make purchasing its Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates more efficient for networks, VeriSign Inc. today said it will begin offering three-year certificates next month. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company said the new, longer-term certificates will save customers as much as 24% from the cost of currently available annual renewals, in part by doing away with the yearly administrative work involved. VeriSign says its new three-year certificates will enable 256-bit SSL encryption for compatible software running servers and browser, including the Mozilla Firefox browser. SSL is a standard protocol for Internet and telecommunications networks that relies on public key infrastructure technology to encrypt data flowing over networks. E-commerce businesses subscribing to VeriSign's SSL certificates display a seal on their sites to let buyers know their data are protected. Indeed, VeriSign says a recent survey conducted by TNS Market Research indicated 40% of online shoppers said they abandoned transactions they would have completed had they seen the seal. Currently, VeriSign counts more than 450,000 businesses worldwide as clients, including, it says, 47 of the 50 biggest e-commerce sites.