SSL Certificate Decoder: How to Read and Analyze Any Certificate SSL certificates are essential for HTTPS security, but their raw format is not exactly human-friendly. If you have ever opened a certificate file and seen a long block starting with -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----- , you know the problem. In this guide, we’ll quickly look at how to decode an SSL certificate, what fields matter, and how to detect common HTTPS issues. What is an SSL certificate? An SSL certificate is a digital file used to secure HTTPS connections. It helps prove that a website owns a cryptographic public key and allows browsers to verify the identity of the server. Most modern certificates follow the X.509 standard and include: the domain name covered by the certificate the issuing Certificate Authority the expiration date the public key the signature algorithm Why use an SSL certificate decoder? Raw certificates are usually encoded in PEM or DER format.…