Websites with a so?called SSL certificate—a green padlock in the address bar—are certainly not always well secured. Various institutions, for example, advise people to always look for that green padlock. NOS examined thousands of websites that are on blacklists. More than 4,000 were labeled ‘safe’ because they had the required SSL certificate.
That certificate is available for anyone to purchase, but it says more about the technical state of the website than about its content. The green padlock only concerns the security of the connection and has nothing to do with the website’s content or login capabilities.
The green padlock is indeed an important aspect of overall security. But unfortunately, there are more and more fraudulent websites that also use it to appear trustworthy.