Large numbers of UK websites are not secure with Chrome warnings starting to roll out

The 24th of July arrived and websites across the country will start to have ‘Not secure’ warnings displayed, warning users that UK websites are not secure and to be wary about using them or entering any data into them. The warnings will come with the global release of Chrome 68 which is now used in one form or another by the majority of web users.

This is all part of the efforts by Google and other browsers to keep Internet users safe – which is why eBay have insisted that all third party content be hosted on secure servers in listing descriptions. From the Chrome 66 update older certificates will be untrusted and this will be prominently flagged in the browser bar but within days now you’ll start to see more prominent warnings.

It’s estimated that over half of all UK websites are not secure with HTTPS and it’s not the small SMEs that you might think. There are a ton of major companies, charities, businesses and even half the government who haven’t got around to securing their websites. A case in point is my local council – West Berkshire, who as the image above shows (as of 25th July 2018) still don’t have an HTTPS website.

Websites should now be using TLS, the protocol which replaced Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), although everyone still tends to refer to SSL – it’s what puts the S into HTTP making it HTTPS in URLs – you should be able to see it at the beginning of every Tamebay URL alongside a green padlock.

There is very little excuse for government website and large businesses not to be operating on secure websites today. Even for smaller businesses, often it’s just a quick call to your ISP and they’ll readily move you to a secure server. If your website is showing a warning or starts to in the near future then you’ll know what the problem is. If you see a ‘Not secure’ warning then so will a large number of your potential customers and they could start to shop elsewhere.