History and development


Secure Network Programming API

Early research efforts toward transport layer security included the Secure Network Programming (SNP) application programming interface (API), which in 1993 explored the approach of having a secure transport layer API closely resembling Berkeley sockets, to facilitate retrofitting preexisting network applications with security measures.


SSL 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0

The SSL protocol was originally developed by Netscape. Version 1.0 was never publicly released; version 2.0 was released in February 1995 but "contained a number of security flaws which ultimately led to the design of SSL version 3.0" (Rescorla 2001). SSL version 3.0 was released in 1996.



TLS 1.0 (SSL 3.1)

TLS 1.0 was first defined in RFC 2246 in January 1999 as an upgrade to SSL Version 3.0. As stated in the RFC, "the differences between this protocol and SSL 3.0 are not dramatic, but they are significant enough that TLS 1.0 and SSL 3.0 do not interoperate." TLS 1.0 does include a means by which a TLS implementation can downgrade the connection to SSL 3.0.



TLS 1.1 (SSL 3.2)

TLS 1.1 was defined in RFC 4346 in April 2006. It is an update from TLS version 1.0. Significant differences in this version include:
  • Added protection against Cipher block chaining (CBC) attacks.
  • The implicit Initialization Vector (IV) was replaced with an explicit IV.
  • Change in handling of padding errors.
  • Support for IANA registration of parameters.


TLS 1.2 (SSL 3.3)

TLS 1.2 was defined in RFC 5246 in August 2008. It is based on the earlier TLS 1.1 specification. Major differences include:
  • The MD5-SHA-1 combination in the pseudorandom function (PRF) was replaced with SHA-256, with an option to use cipher-suite specified PRFs.
  • The MD5-SHA-1 combination in the Finished message hash was replaced with SHA-256, with an option to use cipher-suite specific hash algorithms.
  • The MD5-SHA-1 combination in the digitally-signed element was replaced with a single hash negotiated during handshake, defaults to SHA-1.
  • Enhancement in the client's and server's ability to specify which hash and signature algorithms they will accept.
  • Expansion of support for authenticated encryption ciphers, used mainly for Galois/Counter Mode (GCM) and CCM mode of Advanced Encryption Standardencryption.
  • TLS Extensions definition and Advanced Encryption Standard CipherSuites were added.