In this article, we explore 12 essential SSL stats to shed light on the current state of SSL certificate adoption, usage patterns, and the impact on website security. These insights will deepen your understanding of web security and show why SSL certificates are at the forefront of data protection.
Essential SSL Stats for an Industry Overview
SSL certificates are ubiquitous, and their adoption isn’t showing signs of slowing downs. On the contrary, positive SSL figures increase with each passing year while the security vulnerabilities diminish. Still, there’s a long way to go until the entire Web is encrypted.
Browse the SSL user statistics below to see where we are at now.
1. 292,090,769 SSL Certificates Detected on the Internet
There are over 292 million SSL certificates on the Internet as of 19th December 2023. That’s an increase of 40 million in just two years.
In the United States alone, the number of certificates is a whopping 34,197,686. Second-placed Germany has only 13,940,701 certs. On the opposite side, Eritrea has just 43 SSL certificates for the entire country.
Source: BuiltWith
2. 90% of all SSL Certificates Are Issued by 6 Certificate Authorities
51.1% of all the websites use the IdenTrus CA. That is an SSL certificate authority market share of 55.5%.
Sectigo is currently second with a 11.9% market share, while GlobalSign comes in third place with a 10.4% share.
Most SSL certificate authorities, including Amazon, have a market share of less than 0.1%.
Source: W3Techs.
3. The Certificate Authority Market is Expected to Reach $282 million by 2028
The global certificate authority market will grow from $167 million in 2023 to $282 million by 2028, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 11% during the forecast period.
Source: MarketsandMarkets
4. 94.3% of SSL Certificates are Domain Validation
Domain Validation certificates dominate the Web with a 94.4% share as per a Netcraft report. Organization Validation certs have a 5.5% market share, while Extended Validation products 0.1%.
Let’s Encrypt alone has issued over a billion free certificates. However, there’s also a definite place for premium certificates when you look at the share of traffic by certificate type.
60% of all the traffic goes via sites with DV, 27% via sites with OV, and 13% via sites with EV.
5. 36.3% of Sites Have Inadequate Security
According to SSL Pulse, a global dashboard for monitoring the quality of SSL/TLS support over time across Alexa’s top 150,000 most popular websites, a worrying number of sites (36.3%) don’t follow the best security practices. Of 134,99 sites surveyed on December 12, 2023, 49,065 had inadequate security.
Whether it’s an incomplete certificate chain or weak ciphers, the alarming figure emphasized why a proper SSL configuration is critical.
6. 62.1% of Sites Support the Latest TLS 1.3 Protocol
TLS 1.3 brings new security features and a faster TLS handshake. Since its release in 2018, 62.1% of surveyed sites by SSL Labs have migrated to the latest version. 2.0% of sites still support the now-deprecated SSL protocol.
7. Over 90% of All Phishing Websites Use HTTPS
According to the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG), over 90% of the phishing sites use the padlock in 2023. The report concluded that phishing activity, as well as the use of HTTPS protocol, are on a continuous ride with almost all phishing websites employing a valid SSL certificate.
That’s a significant 40% increase from 2019. Free SSL certificates offer phishers an extremely easy way to look more credible.
8. 21% of Alexa’s Top 100,000 Sites Don’t use SSL
According to recent findings from an Internet Security Report conducted by WatchGuard, an alarming proportion of Alexa’s Top 100,000 ranked websites, approximately 21%, are still neglecting to implement HTTPS protocol.
A staggering 20,911 websites within this elite group transmit data in plain text, exposing sensitive information to potential vulnerabilities.
9. 35.4% of Unencrypted Traffic Originates from Mobile Devices
This noteworthy shift represents a remarkable departure from the previous year when mobile devices accounted for over 70% of the unencrypted traffic.
The current figures revealed by Google Transparency Report indicate a substantial improvement in mobile device security.
10. 9.1732631e50 Years Needed to Break the SSL Encryption
Here at SSL Dragon, we’ve crunched the numbers to prove beyond any doubt that breaking SSL encryption is beyond human capabilities. Unless you build a hypothetical super-computer that will require electricity from 30% of all nuclear plants, decoding the encrypted certificate is just a pipe dream.
11. 82.9% of the Websites Use a Valid SSL Certificate
82.9% of the websites use a valid SSL certificate in 2023, up from 18.5% five years ago. The report courtesy of W3Techs highlights the progress of HTTPS adoption over the years, among other things.
While percentage-wise, this number is pretty high, the remaining unencrypted 17.8% amount to millions of websites that are a potential security threat to users.
12. 93.2% of Chrome Browsing Time Is Spent Over Secure HTTPS Pages
According to the same Google Transparency Report, the average browsing time is higher than the percentage of loaded pages, indicating that users are more inclined to quickly exit a website upon discovering it lacks proper website security measures.
The disparities among platforms in terms of browsing time are relatively minimal. Chromecast and Mac’s users are at an impressive 98% and 97% respectively. Conversely, Linux users rank lowest at 86%, while both Android and Windows users hover around the 94% mark.
Conclusion
As you can see, our 12 stats about SSL certificates indeed tell a story. The Internet is becoming a safer place as a result of affordable certificates and steady HTTPS encryption. However, plenty of challenges remain, especially the way websites configure their SSL certificates.
With more and more services and companies migrating online, the SSL industry will continue to grow in the upcoming years.
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