Is there any technical security reason not to buy the cheapest SSL certificate you can find?

Question

While shopping for a basic SSL cert for my blog, I found that many of the more well known Certificat Authorities have an entry-level certificate (with less stringent validation of the purchaser's identity) for approximately $120 and up. But then I found that Network Solutions offers one of these lower-end certs for $29.99 (12 hours ago it was $12.95) (4-year contract).

Is there any technical security reason that I should be aware of that could make me regret buying the lowest end certificate? They all promise things like 99% browser recognition, etc. I'm not asking this question on SE for comparison of things like the CA's quality of support (or lack thereof) or anything like that. I want to know if there is any cryptographic or PKI reason so avoid a cert which costs so little. It, like others, says that it offers "up to 256 bit encryption". Thanks.

Answer 1

For the purposes of this discussion there are only a couple differences between web signing certificates:

1. Extended vs standard validation (green bar).
2. Number of bits in a certificate request (1024/2048/4096).
3. Certificate chain.

It is easier to set up certificates with a shorter trust chain but there are inexpensive certs out there with a direct or only one level deep chain. You can also get the larger 2048 and 4096 bit certs inexpensively.

As long as you don't need the extended validation there is really no reason to go with the more expensive certificates.

There is one specific benefit that going with a larger vendor provides - the more mainline the vendor, the less likely they are to have their trust revoked in the event of a breach.
For example, DigiNotar is a smaller vendor that was unfortunate enough to have their trust revoked in September 2011.

Answer 2

For a domain validation certificate, the only thing that matters is whether browsers accept the certificate as trusted. So, take the cheapest cert that is trusted by all browsers (or all browsers you care about). There is no significant cryptographic reason to prefer one supplier over another.

(You will of course have to pay more for an extended validation certificate, but that's an entirely different class of certificate. I think you already know that.)

Answer 3

In general the two things which you probably can pass on are the EV (since that is just the green bar gimmick) and also SGC does not really provide any real benefit today (since it only applies to browsers from the days of IE5 and before)

This site provides a good overview of why to avoid SGC: http://www.sslshopper.com/article-say-no-to-sgc-ssl-certificates.html

Answer 4

Good stuff in other answers, let me add some remarks about proper CA behaviour.

If the CA has an history

• of lack of security policy enforcement,
• of violation of "browser approved CA" agreement,
• of signing of non DNS names using their official root certificate (like IP addresses, or non existent DNS names f.ex. bosscomputer.private),
• of lack of transparency about its behaviour and its resellers,

and the end user (like me) inspects your certificate, and knows about this, that might reflect badly on you. Especially any CA that is a subdivision of a company also in the business of connexion interception.

When I see USERtrust or COMODO or Verisign in a certificate chain, I am not positively impressed.

Answer 5

From a technical standpoint, the only thing that matters is browser recognition. And all of the trusted authorities have very nearly 100% coverage.

I could say more, but to avoid duplicating effort here's a nearly-identical question with a lot of well-reasoned responses: Are all SSL Certificates equal?

Answer 6

Domain validation SSL are instant issued SSL certificates as it does requires you to validate the domain ownership via email only. You do not need to supply any company or business documents for validation process and this makes the SSL issuance process fastest.

Domain validated certificate offers high encryption and high assurance as they have been issued by standard CA RapidSSL, GeoTrust, Thawte. Domain validation SSL supplies only the domain name in SSL information.

Answer 7

Because Godaddy is a douchenozzle?

There are plenty of other cheaper options, rapidssl, geotrust, etc.

Answer 8

Ignoring the technical aspects of certificate encryption, the issue to consider is trust and reputation. If you are only concerned about encryption of the traffic, then you can use a simple self signed certificate. On the other hand, if what you want to achieve is to provide a level of trust that you or your site really is who/what it claims to be, then you need a certificate from a certificate authority which people trust.

The CA achieves this level of trust through vetting of the people they sell certificates to. Many of the cheaper certificate providers achieve their lower prices by reducing their operational overheads and this is often done by having less vigorous vetting processes.

The question should not be "Who is the cheapest certificate provider", but rather "Which certificate provider has the necessary reputation and level of trust which users or potential users of my service will accept".

Tim

P.S. Unfortunately, to some extent, the whole model is broken anyway. Few users even check to see who the CA is that issued the certificate and have little knowledge or understanding of the chain of authority involved.

Answer 9

From a pragmatic standpoint for a site with standard-type users, the only criteria that matters for an SSL certificate is "is it supported by the browsers that my users will use to access the site". As long as it is, you're fine with it being as cheap as possible.

A while back a potential differentiator was whether the certificate was EV SSL or not but to be honest I've not seen great user awareness of that, so unlikely to be worth the money.