What are the practical applications of SSL certificates?

The most common deployment for SSL protection is the securing the transmission of financial information within an e-commerce area. However, with the incidences of identity theft on the rise, protecting the transmission of a broad range of personally-identifiable information is becoming ever more important. This kind of data that is useful in an identity fraud situation would include identity and social security numbers, bank account details, passport numbers, e-mail addresses and demographic information as well
as account registration and login information.

In terms of applications and protocols, SSL Certificates can be used to secure the following:

• Web Servers
• Mail Servers
• Databases
• FTP Sites
• Internet Chat
• NNTP