Overview
It can be concerning when you check your website, and suddenly see a warning that says that it's Not Secure. Rest assured, this warning does not mean that your computer or the site you are visiting is affected by malware. This article will explain why this occurs, and how it can be fixed.
Why is this happening?
A Not Secure warning informs you that the browser is detecting an unencrypted connection to the website. There can be a variety of causes for this warning, but the common culprits include:
- The site is not using HTTPS
- The site does not have a valid SSL certificate
- The site is using a self-signed or other untrusted certificate authority.
How does a Not Secure warning affect me?
If this is occurring on a test environment or trusted internal page, such as your Plesk/cPanel/WHM login pages, then it's likely that your site is using a self-signed certificate and you can simply add a security exception to your browser to use the website as normal.
However, failure to use HTTPS with a valid SSL certificate on a production site means unwanted parties could potentially be monitoring your website activity and/or accessing personal information. Additionally, if visitors see a Not Secure warning, they may lose trust in your website, resulting in a loss of visitation and sales.
Obtain a SSL certificate
Before we're able to use HTTPS, we will first need to install an SSL to our website. At Media Temple, there are a variety of free and premium options available:
Free:
Premium:
- Ordering a Standard SSL certificate from Media Temple
- Ordering a Multi Domain SSL from Media Temple
- Ordering a Wildcard SSL certificate from Media Temple
Redirect to HTTPS
After installing your SSL, you will need to ensure your site redirects to HTTPS. There are a variety of methods that an HTTPS redirect can be performed:
Check your site
After you've installed the SSL Certificate and redirected your site to HTTPS, you can check your site to see if there's a padlock icon in the URL bar to indicate a secure connection. You may need to clear your browsers cache to see your changes.
