How does the SSL certificate create a secure connection

When a browser attempts to access a website that is secured by SSL, the browser and the web server establish an SSL connection using a process called an “SSL Handshake”. Note that the SSL Handshake is invisible to the user and happens instantaneously.

Essentially, three keys are used to set up the SSL connection: the public, private, and session keys. Anything encrypted with the public key can only be decrypted with the private key, and vice versa.

Because encrypting and decrypting with private and public key takes a lot of processing power, they are only used during the SSL Handshake to create a symmetric session key. After the secure connection is made, the session key is used to encrypt all transmitted data.

1. Browser connects to a web server (website) secured with SSL (https). Browser requests that the server identify itself.
2. Server sends a copy of its SSL Certificate, including the server’s public key.
3. Browser checks the certificate root against a list of trusted Certificate Authorities' and that the certificate is unexpired, unrevoked, and that its common name is valid for the website that it is connecting to. If the browser trusts the certificate, it creates, encrypts, and sends back a symmetric session key using the server’s public key.
4. Server decrypts the symmetric session key using its private key and sends back an acknowledgement encrypted with the session key to start the encrypted session.
5. Server and Browser now encrypt all transmitted data with the session key.

So, basically speaking, the SSL use the asymmetric encryption (public/private key pair) to deliver the shared session key, and finally achieved a communication way with symmetric encryption, because it's faster.

Symmetric-key algorithms are algorithms for cryptography that use the same cryptographic keys for both encryption of plaintext and decryption of ciphertext. The keys may be identical or there may be a simple transformation to go between the two keys.