Did you read my recent newsletter titled: LTC Insurance Company to Liquidate – Biggest Healthcare Failure Ever? If not, click on the following link to read (along with other past newsletters):

Tech Alert-Thanks to Google Change-Your Website is Now Deemed Unsecure
                I don’t normally send out newsletters about tech issues in our industry, but this one needs EVERYONE’s attention.

                Have you ever been to a website where your browser (Chrome, Firefox, etc.) told you the site was not secure?

                If you did and are like most, you didn’t want to spend time on that site. Why? Because you can’t afford to have something downloaded from the unsecure site that could crash your computer and you don’t want hackers getting into your computer to steal information.

                Huge Google Security Change

                Most people (almost everyone) have no idea what Google did recently when it comes to the security setting on websites. What did Google do? They changed their security settings so that IF your site doesn’t have an SSL certificate, the site will be deemed unsecure by Google (I believe Firefox just started doing the same thing recently).

                Ok, I know, what is an SSL certificate?

                “An SSL Certificate (Secure Sockets Layer), also called a Digital Certificate, creates a secure link between a website and a visitor’s browser. By ensuring that all data passed between the two remains private and secure, SSL encryption prevents hackers from stealing private information such as credit card numbers, names and addresses.”

                When you go to a site you are used to seeing http://. If the site has an SSL certificate, the page link starts with https://. The “s” is for secure.

                What does it look like in the browser window? The following is the old version of Chrome and the new version of Chrome. Now, next to your website address it will say that your site is not secure. The second image is what all unsecured pages will look like eventually.


Don’t believe me? All you have to do is make sure you have the most updated version of Chrome and then try to pull up the front page of your website. I’ll bet that 95% of those reading this newsletter now have unsecured sites.

                What do you do now?

You must fix this problem. I am in the process of getting SSL certificates setup for all my sites and you need to do the same.

What will it cost?

This is sort of a bummer, but if you are like me, you will have to hire someone to fix this problem. I’ve asked around and prices seem to be around $1,000 to fix this issue. If you are tech savvy enough, you can do it yourself (although you may have to buy an SSL certificate).

I do not have a team to fix this issue, but if you can’t find someone who can fix this issue for less than $500, email me at roccy@strategcmp.net and I will refer you to the firm I am using to fix my sites.

Not fixing this issue is not an option.

You could choose not to fix this issue and hope it doesn’t deter traffic to your site. Doing so, in my opinion, would be a huge mistake. The longer you let this problem linger, the worse it will become.

Roccy DeFrancesco, JD
roccy@strategicmp.net
269-216-9978