Even when business is booming, smart companies always have an eye on the bottom line. Security is not usually one of the first places companies look to trim expenses, but some IT professionals believe that they can easily lower costs by eliminating third-party Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate Authorities (CAs) from the budget equation.

This paper explores the true TCO for self-signed SSL certificates, including a side-by-side comparison of a self-signed architecture versus working with a third-party SSL vendor. Before a company decides to use self-signed certificates,these issues deserve careful consideration.