Some really great news came out today regarding SSL security. EFF, Mozilla, Cisco as well as a few other big players in the Open Source industry have unveiled a new service called “Let’s Encrypt“.
Free SSL Certificate Authority
Let’s Encrypt is a new SSL Certificate authority that will offering free SSL certificates to all users, whether they are personal or corporate entities.
In addition to the free certificates, the goal of Let’s Encrypt will be to greatly simplify the process of generating and installing the SSL certificates to your server / website. The days of complicated tinkering with openssl, keys and cert’s will be behind us!
The new process should be as simple as installing the Let’s Encrypt software via Linux repositories and then running the software, telling it which root domain you wish to secure. And that’s it!
From their website:
The key principles behind Let’s Encrypt are:
- Free: Anyone who owns a domain can get a certificate validated for that domain at zero cost.
- Automatic: The entire enrollment process for certificates occurs painlessly during the server’s native installation or configuration process, while renewal occurs automatically in the background.
- Secure: Let’s Encrypt will serve as a platform for implementing modern security techniques and best practices.
- Transparent: All records of certificate issuance and revocation will be available to anyone who wishes to inspect them.
- Open: The automated issuance and renewal protocol will be an open standard and as much of the software as possible will be open source.
- Cooperative: Much like the underlying Internet protocols themselves, Let’s Encrypt is a joint effort to benefit the entire community, beyond the control of any one organization.
