SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) and TLS (Transport Layer Security) are both cryptographic protocols that provide authentication and data encryption between servers, machines and applications operating over a network.
- SSL used to transmit information privately along with message integrity and provides guarantee the server identity.
- SSL works mainly through using public/private key encryption on data.
- SSL was originally developed by Netscape and first came onto the public in 1995 with SSL 2.0, SSL 1.0 was never released to the public.
- In 1996, SSL 2.0 was quickly replaced by SSL 3.0 after a number of vulnerabilities were found in it.
Over the years, new versions of the protocols have been released to address vulnerabilities and support stronger, more secure cipher suites and algorithms.The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) created TLS as the successor to SSL .
- In 1999, as a new version of SSL, intrduced as TLS 1.1. Currently we are working in TLS 1.2, Yet to come TLS v. 1.3, its in draft.
- Currently all browsers support TLS 1.0 by default and may optionally support TLS 1.1 and 1.2.
- The TLS protocol aims primarily to provide privacy and data integrity between two or more communicating computer applications.
In current, Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) “HTTP Secure” is an application-specific implementation that is a combination of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) with the SSL/TLS. HTTPS is used to provide encrypted communication with and secure identification of a Web server.
In addition to HTTPS, SSL/TLS can be used to secure other application-specific protocols such as FTP, SMTP, NNTP, etc.
