Identity theft is everyone’s problem. An online thief who tricks you into using a single fake site can use your password to hack into everything, including email profiles, social networking sites, bank accounts, and sensitive corporate pages. These thieves are very sophisticated and can replicate the look and feel of legitimate websites, fooling millions of unaware internet consumers each year.

EV Certificates are an effective way to distinguish legitimate websites from sites operated by fraudsters.

EV secured sites undergo a rigorous verification process established by the CA Browser Forum, a collaboration of more than 30 leading certification authorities and browser software vendors. This verification process confirms the identity and existence of website operators using reliable third party sources. Users visiting an EV secured website will see a green bar and the organization's name in the URL bar, providing visual reassurance of the website operator's identity.

EV Certificates are shown to help sales-driven sites increase revenue. Many EV secured sites are reporting 10% or higher increases in buyer click through rates.

Because of the higher security and potential increase in revenue associated with EV certificates, the OTA recommends that responsible organizations deploy an EV Certificate on any site requiring a secure connection. IT departments should assist management and end users in understanding that EV Certificates will protect the security of users and reduce the organization’s vulnerability to attacks. All users should upgrade to browsers that support EV Certificates and every website conducting online transactions should evaluate EV certificates as part of their security and brand protection strategy

See the EV Difference in Various Web Browsers

OTA Certificate Providers

• DigiCert EV SSL Certificates

• Globalsign

• GoDaddy

• Verisign

Revised  March 24, 2011