How SSL provides confidentiality

 

SSL uses a combination of symmetric and asymmetric encryption to ensure message privacy. During the SSL handshake, the SSL client and SSL server agree an encryption algorithm and a shared secret key to be used for one session only. All messages transmitted between the SSL client and SSL server are encrypted using that algorithm and key, ensuring that the message remains private even if it is intercepted. SSL supports a wide range of cryptographic algorithms. Because SSL uses asymmetric encryption when transporting the shared secret key, there is no key distribution problem with SSL. For more information about encryption techniques, refer to Cryptography.

 

Parent topic:

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) concepts

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