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securityencryptionssl-certificateaescertificate-authority

Why do many SSL Certificate vendors advertise a 128/256Bit encryption support?

I was wondering why vendors of SSL-Certificates always say, that their certificate supports 128/256-Bit AES-Encryption?
I mean, the symmetric encryption is something that happens between a webbrowser and a webserver - and has nothing to do with the SSL-Certificate itself (as also no information about symmetric encryption is saved in the certificate...).

Can anyone explain to me, why these companies advertise with this statement?
Is it just good marketing? Or is there a real functional reason behind?

Examples see here:
http://www.startssl.com/?app=39
https://www.symantec.com/theme.jsp?themeid=verisign-ssl-certificates&inid=vrsn_symc_ssl_Buy

Solution

  • As you suspect, it's just marketing. Which symmetric ciphers are available depends entirely on the web browser and server and has nothing to do with the certificate itself.