GlobalSign, CloudFlare Partnership Accelerates Secure Web Page Load Speed

Faster Secure Page Loading Improves Website Performance and Allows Organizations to Extend SSL Across Entire Websites

London (I-Newswire) November 1, 2012 - GlobalSign (www.globalsign.co.uk), one of the leading providers of SSL Certificates worldwide, today announced a technology partnership with CloudFlare, the Web performance and security company, to provide GlobalSign customers with the most rapid SSL-secured website page loading available. As of today, all GlobalSign SSL customers will benefit from page-loading acceleration capabilities at no extra charge, with no additional configuration required. The advanced technology collaboration will increase secure website page-load speeds to six times faster than traditional SSL, hundreds of millions of times per month. By increasing performance, GlobalSign is facilitating wider adoption of SSL and, as a result, contributing to reduced risk of data breaches, website compromises, and consumer ID theft and fraud; faster performance also boosts customer loyalty and reduces website abandonment rates.

"Every business needs secure websites that perform faster than the industry average. GlobalSign already provides strong SSL certificates as well as anti-malware and phishing alert services, and now, with CloudFlare's page-loading acceleration advantages, customers can find an attractive package of secure web business performance services that does not sap business resources,” said Eric Ogren of Ogren Research. "By focusing on security, performance and resilience, the GlobalSign-CloudFlare partnership has set the bar for how fast a Certificate validity status request should be delivered."

Introducing fast loading SSL-secured web pages is part of GlobalSign’s mission to make the technology more convenient to implement across entire websites. Advanced threats have forced organizations to recognize that SSL is needed across a broader range of web pages, but concerns about sluggish performance due to the slow loading times associated with SSL-secured pages and the effects on end-user experience have stopped most companies from implementing SSL beyond the checkout and login pages. GlobalSign accelerated secure page loading allows organizations to apply proven security across their sites without sacrificing performance.

Accelerated SSL Secured Page Loading
Through this collaborative effort with CloudFlare, GlobalSign now delivers the fastest SSL page-load speed available today. Browsers that visit websites protected with a GlobalSign SSL Certificate can validate the certificate six times faster, allowing for accelerated web page loading. Websites using SSL Certificates depend on their Certificate Authority (CA) SSL to deliver SSL Certificate validity status, known as Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP), to the web browsers before a page will load and display content. Using CloudFlare’s extended network of 23 global data centers, the amount of time site visitors are forced to wait until a page loads and provides content is now dramatically reduced.

Key benefits of the partnership for GlobalSign SSL customers include:

• Accelerated Secure Page Loading: SSL validity status delivery time is six times faster, so secure pages load faster, reducing abandonment.

• Reduced geographical delay: Typically Certificate Authorities operate a small number of points of presence in a single location. Accelerated secure page loading is enabled by CloudFlare’s 23 points of presence all over the world.

• Resilience to DDoS attacks: CloudFlare’s globally distributed network mitigates against distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, protecting GlobalSign OCSP services.

Supporting Quotes

"To maximize the value of their website investments, organizations should take advantage of performance and security technologies available; otherwise, they are putting themselves and consumers at risk of a poor user experience and cyberthreats," said Ryan Hurst, GlobalSign CTO. "Our development efforts with CloudFlare, as well as the benefits of CloudFlare’s global infrastructure, have eliminated the performance concerns associated with traditional SSL usage. Customers can now deploy SSL more broadly and receive maximum security without impacting the sites' performance."

"We are focused on helping websites operate with peak efficiency, fast performance and strong security," said Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO of CloudFlare. "The combination of our advanced web optimization technology with GlobalSign's forward-thinking approach to SSL will allow both GlobalSign and CloudFlare customers to stay ahead of their competition when it comes to providing a secure, outstanding and fast user experience."

Aside from the two companies collaborating on accelerated SSL-secured page loading, GlobalSign is CloudFlare’s partner to provide SSL Certificates to CloudFlare customers. To date, thousands of CloudFlare customers have taken advantage of the security benefits provided by GlobalSign SSL. Continued developments between the companies will shortly make the benefits of GlobalSign high-performance SSL available to hundreds of thousands of CloudFlare customers. To learn more about the advantages that the GlobalSign-CloudFlare collaboration provides, visit: https://www.globalsign.com/ssl-information-center/security-and-website-performance.html

About CloudFlare
CloudFlare, Inc. (www.cloudflare.com / @cloudflare) makes sites twice as fast, protects them from attacks, ensures they are always online, and makes it simple to add web apps with a single click. CloudFlare supercharges websites regardless of size or platform with no need to add hardware, install software, or change a line of code. The CloudFlare community gets stronger as it grows; every new site makes the network smarter. Thanks to our awesome sauce technology, every month hundreds of millions of people experience a faster, safer, better Internet. CloudFlare is recognized by the World Economic Forum as a Technology Pioneer and has been named the Most Innovative Network & Internet Technology Company of the Year by the Wall Street Journal two years running. CloudFlare is based in San Francisco, California, USA.

About GMO GlobalSign
GlobalSign has been a trust service provider since 1996. Its focus has been, and always will be, on providing convenient and highly productive PKI solutions for organizations of all sizes. Its core Digital Certificate solutions allow its thousands of authenticated customers to conduct SSL secured transactions, data transfer, distribution of tamper-proof code, and protection of online identities for secure email and access control. Vision and commitment to innovation led to GlobalSign being recognized by Frost & Sullivan for the 2011 Product Line Strategy Award. The company has local offices in the US, Europe and throughout Asia. For the latest news on GlobalSign visit www.globalsign.co.uk or follow GlobalSign on Twitter (@globalsign).

About GMO Internet Group
GMO Internet Group is a comprehensive provider of industry-leading Internet solutions including domain name registration, cloud-based and traditional hosting, ecommerce, security, and payment processing services that each hold the top share of their respective markets in Japan. Other key business areas for the Group include online securities/FX trading, Internet advertising, search engine marketing and online research. In 2011 a new Social Media & Smartphone Platform segment was established bringing together group initiatives in social apps development, daily deals and Android app distribution. GMO Internet, Inc. (TSE: 9449) is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. For more information please visit http://www.gmo.jp/en