little box » IIS: Setting up a self-signed SSL certificate

SSL is the industry standard encryption protocol used for encrypting sensitive data such as credit card information on pretty much all major ecommerce sites.

The problem is that SSL certificates can be expensive. One of the primary providers, Verisign charges up to $350 for one year (http://verisign.com/products/site/secure/index.html). Yes, you have to renew them on a subscription basis as well

Developing a website that uses SSL technology can therefore be expensive. However there is a way to create a self-signed cert. Note that self-sign certs are useless in the real world and should not be used. It will take too long to explain here why but basically SSL certs have to be verified by an authorised provider. And unless you are a large multinational SSL cert issuing company that ain’t you.

So anyway, on to how to create your own. It was something I had to do whilst building an eccomerce site and it took me a while to figure out how to do it so I thought I’d share