Without an SGC-enabled certificate on your site, your visitors using certain older browsers and many Windows 2000 users will only receive 40- or 56-bit encryption
thawte is one of a very few Certification Authorities (CAs) with SGC-enabled SSL certificates that can provide true 128- or 256-bit encryption to the most website visitors. 128-bit encryption offers 2
88 as many possible combinations as 40-bit encryption
That’s over a trillion times a trillion times stronger.
A recent independent study run by the Yankee Group, in September 2005, found that millions of internet users still use older software versions to run their computers and surf the internet. Many of them connect to secure websites with weak, vulnerable 40 and 56-bit encryption and, in doing so, create a security risk both to themselves and the website.
In the same tests, the Yankee Group found that when using SGC-enabled certificates, virtually all combinations of Windows operating system, Internet Explorer and server are able to step up to 128-bit encryption, the minimum recommended encryption for financial transactions, thus making it possible for virtually every internet user to your site to enjoy the protection of 128-bit or higher encryption.
256-bit encryption can be achieved if the user's browser capability and the cipher suite installed on the web server are both 256-bit compatible.
