SSL/TLS Cipher Suites
A cipher suite combines four kinds of security features, and is given a name in the SSL protocol specification. Before data flows over a SSL connection, both ends attempt to negotiate a cipher suite. This lets them establish an appropriate quality of protection for their communications, within the constraints of the particular mechanism combinations which are available. The features associated with a cipher suite are:
- The protocol, SSL or TLS.
- The type of key exchange algorithm used. SSL defines many; the ones that provide server authentication are the most important ones, but anonymous key exchange is supported. (Note that anonymous key exchange algorithms are subject to “man in the middle” attacks, and are not recommended in the SAML context.) The “RSA” authenticated key exchange algorithm is currently the most interoperable algorithm. Another important key exchange algorithm is the authenticated Diffie-Hellman “DHE_DSS” key exchange, which has no patent-related implementation constraints.
- Whether the key exchange algorithm is freely exportable from the United States of America. Exportable algorithms must use short (512-bit) public keys for key exchange and short (40-bit) symmetric keys for encryption. Keys of these lengths have been successfully attacked, and their use is not recommended.
- The encryption algorithm used. The fastest option is the RC4 stream cipher; DES and variants(DES40, 3DES-EDE) as well as AES are also supported in “cipher block chaining” (CBC) mode.Other modes are also supported, refer to the TLS documentation.
- Null encryption is also an option in some cipher suites. Note that null encryption performs no encryption; in such cases SSL/TLS is used only to authenticate and provide integrity protection. Cipher suites with null encryption do not provide confidentiality, and must not be used in cases where confidentiality is a requirement and is not obtained by means other than SSL/TLS.
- The digest algorithm used for the Message Authentication Code. The recommended choice is SHA1.
- For example, the cipher suite named SSL_DHE_DSS_EXPORT_WITH_DES40_CBC_SHA uses SSL, uses an authenticated Diffie-Hellman key exchange (DHE_DSS), is export grade(EXPORT), uses an exportable variant of the DES cipher (DES40_CBC), and uses the SHA1 digest algorithm in its MAC (SHA).
A given implementation of SSL will support a particular set of cipher suites, and some subset of those will be enabled by default. Applications have a limited degree of control over the cipher suites that are used on their connections; they can enable or disable any of the supported cipher suites, but cannot change the cipher suites that are available.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.