A bug in GoDaddy’s domain validation process forced the registrar to revoke SSL certificates and reissue certs for more than 6,000 customers.

For the first time, more than half of traffic on the Internet is encrypted, and experts say free SSL certificate providers are playing a big role.

Certificate authority Let’s Encrypt is celebrating a major milestone in the young nonprofit’s existence issuing its 5 millionth certificate this month. Let’s Encrypt launched to the general public just seven months ago. “Our goal is to get the entire web 100 percent HTTPS,” said Josh Aas, executive director for the Internet Security Research Group, the...

Certificate authority Let’s Encrypt blamed a bug for accidentally disclosing the email addresses of a couple thousand of its users this weekend.

All custom domains hosted on WordPress.com will soon have their sites automatically encrypted for free. WordPress said late Friday afternoon that more than one million sites will have encryption automatically deployed. “We are closing the door to unencrypted web traffic at every opportunity,” wrote Barry Abrahamson, chief systems wrangler at Automattic, WordPress’ parent company. WordPress...

The Let’s Encrypt initiative reached yet another milestone this week when it entered public beta, something it claims should help make it easier for website owners to embrace HTTPS encryption. The latest step comes on the heels of the movement issuing its first certificate back in September and becoming an official Certificate Authority in October. Now, anyone...