Support Forums...To SSL or not to SSL?

[Senad]

Community Support Forums? Do you think they should have SSL security available to them? What are the benefits? What are the drawbacks?

 

[webfreak08]

I see no reason for the forums to have an SSL certificate. Information is already available for everyone (or customers depending on how you have it set up) to see.

 

[Zachary McClung]

Webfreak08,

The only part of a support forum thatI would SSL would be the bakside (Client Profile) and the admin area. The reason behind this, is that some individuals will send private messages back and forth. In these messages, some individuals might share private information and then at that point would have an issue.

The admin area is typically one because you have lots of information that you do not need others to break in and see.

 

[webfreak08]

Private information should be shared through a ticketing system. Giving support only on forums seems unprofessional to me.

 

[Zachary McClung]

webfreak08,

I am not talking nessarily on support. Let's say two clients of yours get close and is doing a specila ssales together or someone passed their username and password or something of the such.

It is more for user to user not admin to user. Do you understand what I am getting at?

 

[Senad]

Agreed on the point in regards to private information on forums. You should ALWAYS direct customers to the ticket system.

 

[mrzippy]

I don't see any benefit to having SSL enabled for your forums. It would do nothing except slow down your server.

Any confidential information should be submitted in your helpdesk.. which *should* use SSL.

🙂

 

[Rochen]

Yeah, just to reiterate what everyone else has said above. I don't think for your standard customer forums SSL would be required, where the posted information is going to be 'publicly available' anyway.

In my opinion it is absolutely critical for a help desk / billing type system where important password and credit card information could be passing between the customer and company though. In fact, we now force our customers to connect to our customer portal (My Rochen) using SSL and deny all non-SSL requests.

- Chris

 

[gwh23]

I don't think SSL is necessary for a forum. SSL is used when a user exchanges personal information and payment data. I don't see why that would be used on a forum . You can state in your user agreements upon sign up that the forum is not using a secure connection.

 

[HMarker]

I agree with everybody replied to this question. SSL is only necessary when posting critical data to the server such as credit card information etc.

 

[RaviAgarwal]

Yeah SSL for forums is not required.

What we have is a separate *Customer Only Forums* area, where we grant permissions to existing customers, to discuess their matters. so even if they use any of their personal information (not CC info 😀), it is not risky. This also gives them a feel of exclusivity.

Forums are a good means to get new customers, so it should be simple and easy to use.