Millions to Lose Secure Internet Access January 1

Internet surfers may take that little green or gold lock in the corner of their Web browser for granted. But starting Jan. 1, 2016, it might go away for a small percentage of people across the globe, and millions of users could lose access to websites because of it.

It all has to do with the “SHA-1 Sunset,” a phrase used by technology insiders to describe the expiration of support for a certain level of encryption. Over the next year, the algorithms older than SHA-1 level of encryption will no longer meet the trusted level of security for many websites, leaving as many as 37 million people unable to access them, according to research from Internet performance and security company CloudFlare.

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This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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