Abstract

The SSL protocol is intended to provide a practical, application-layer, widely applicable connectionoriented mechanism for Internet client/server communications security. This note gives a detailed technical analysis of the cryptographic strength of the SSL 3.0 protocol. A number of minor flaws in the protocol and several new active attacks on SSL are presented; however, these can be easily corrected without overhauling the basic structure of the protocol. We conclude that, while there are still a few technical wrinkles to iron out, on the whole SSL 3.0 is a valuable contribution towards practical communications security.

Citations