Transport Layer Security (TLS) is a security protocol that provides encryption, authentication, and data integrity for internet communications. TLS is commonly used to secure web traffic by encrypting sensitive information such as passwords, credit card numbers, and other personal data transmitted between a web browser and a web server.
TLS works by using public key cryptography to establish a secure connection between the client (web browser) and the server (web server). The TLS handshake process involves the following steps:
- The client sends a request to the server to establish a secure connection.
- The server responds by sending its TLS certificate to the client, which contains the server’s public key.
- The client verifies the authenticity of the server’s certificate and generates a session key to use for encryption.
- The client sends the session key to the server, encrypted with the server’s public key.
- The server decrypts the session key with its private key and the TLS connection is established.
Once the TLS connection is established, all data transmitted between the client and server is encrypted and authenticated, which helps protect it from eavesdropping and tampering by third parties.
TLS has been designed to be backwards-compatible with SSL, which is the predecessor to TLS. However, TLS provides improved security features and is considered to be more secure than SSL. TLS is used widely to secure a variety of internet communications, including web traffic, email, and instant messaging.
