A Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a cryptographic protocol that has now been deprecated. It was designed to facilitate communication across a network in such a way as to prevent eavesdropping and tampering.
Netscape developed the original SSL protocols. Three versions existed:
- SSL Version 1.0 was never publicly released because of serious security flaws in the protocol.
- SSL 2.0 was deprecated in 2011.
- SSL 3.0 was deprecated in June 2015.
The protocols were used in a variety of applications such as web browsers, email clients, instant messengers, as well as for voice over ip (VoIP). This was especially useful when sensitive data was being put into forms as it allowed the encryption of communication between a web browser and a website.
For example to encrypt when you enter information into a form on a website and the protocol
A vulnerability in the design of SSL version 3.0 was discovered in October 2014 (See Poodle Attack or padding attack for more details).
Secure Socket Layers were eventually replaced by Transport Layer Security (TLS) a set of protocols with the same intended purposes. SSL and SSL Certificates are often still referred to even though they are actually referring to TLS Certificates.
Here at Choose Hosting we offer these TLS Protocols and their associated Certificates to encrypt your website for Free! We also sell Enhanced Certificates.
If you've got any questions about SSL or TLS or encrypting your website we'd love to hear from you. You may also get in touch to tell us how we can improve this page!
