TLS and Certificate Authorities

Description

This lecture covers the history and evolution of Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocols, including SSL versions, leading up to TLS 1.3. It explains the importance of using up-to-date encryption methods, the role of certificate authorities in establishing trust between clients and servers, and the vulnerabilities associated with outdated encryption standards. The lecture also discusses the concept of forward secrecy and the challenges posed by man-in-the-middle attacks in the context of TLS. Additionally, it explores the implementation of TLS in HTTPS, the significance of root certificates, and the introduction of Let's Encrypt project to promote widespread adoption of TLS. The lecture concludes with real-world examples of certificate-related attacks and the measures taken to mitigate such security risks.

Official source

https://mediaspace.epfl.ch/media/0_q3p5pz9s

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Related lectures (36)

Related concepts (49)

Certificate authority

In cryptography, a certificate authority or certification authority (CA) is an entity that stores, signs, and issues digital certificates. A digital certificate certifies the ownership of a public key by the named subject of the certificate. This allows others (relying parties) to rely upon signatures or on assertions made about the private key that corresponds to the certified public key. A CA acts as a trusted third party—trusted both by the subject (owner) of the certificate and by the party relying upon the certificate.

Public key certificate

In cryptography, a public key certificate, also known as a digital certificate or identity certificate, is an electronic document used to prove the validity of a public key. The certificate includes information about the key, information about the identity of its owner (called the subject), and the digital signature of an entity that has verified the certificate's contents (called the issuer). If the signature is valid, and the software examining the certificate trusts the issuer, then it can use that key to communicate securely with the certificate's subject.

Root certificate

In cryptography and computer security, a root certificate is a public key certificate that identifies a root certificate authority (CA). Root certificates are self-signed (and it is possible for a certificate to have multiple trust paths, say if the certificate was issued by a root that was cross-signed) and form the basis of an X.509-based public key infrastructure (PKI). Either it has matched Authority Key Identifier with Subject Key Identifier, in some cases there is no Authority Key identifier, then Issuer string should match with Subject string ().

Extended Validation Certificate

An Extended Validation Certificate (EV) is a certificate conforming to X.509 that proves the legal entity of the owner and is signed by a certificate authority key that can issue EV certificates. EV certificates can be used in the same manner as any other X.509 certificates, including securing web communications with HTTPS and signing software and documents. Unlike domain-validated certificates and organization-validation certificates, EV certificates can be issued only by a subset of certificate authorities (CAs) and require verification of the requesting entity's legal identity before certificate issuance.

OpenSSL

OpenSSL is a software library for applications that provide secure communications over computer networks against eavesdropping, and identify the party at the other end. It is widely used by Internet servers, including the majority of HTTPS websites. OpenSSL contains an open-source implementation of the SSL and TLS protocols. The core library, written in the C programming language, implements basic cryptographic functions and provides various utility functions.