Is your business secure? All HTTP sites to suffer from Google update

With the latest Google Chrome update set to take place, the security rating of your company’s website could come into question.

All company websites with ‘http’ rather than ‘https’ will now be marked as “Not Secure” – affecting some of the largest and most popular websites in the UK.

Google Chrome 68 will make it mandatory to have ‘https’ in order to gain a SSL certificate, which signifies the security of a website.

Although the roll-out starts today, Google traditionally do their updates in stages in order to avoid any problems and to make it more manageable for them to implement it successfully. Many websites will see this affect their website over the next few weeks.

The ‘secure’ and ‘not secure’ section of the URL will now be flagged more prominently in red, highlighting the apparent risks the website may possess. This will contrast to the light green with white background that is currently seen for a secure website.

Google have stated that the move is in order to update their security protocols.

Http websites can easily be hacked and have information stolen from them, in comparison to https ones. This can be especially damaging for sites that contain people’s personal data – such as banking and healthcare websites.

UK websites affected by Google update

• Daily Mail
• Lad Bible
• Sky Sports
• Argos
• Virgin Media
• Just Eat
• Next
• Manchester University
• William Hill
• Vodafone
• Three
• ESPN
• Sage