With the onset of technological advancements, we become more and more reliant to it. Almost all our communications and data storage are done through it. Thus, there is a huge demand for tighter security over these transactions. That’s where Transport Layer Security enters the picture. It is designed to secure the communication lines and network between the sender and the receiver, protecting such actions from any potential tampering.
Transport Layer Security, or TLS for short, is a better and more advanced version of its predecessors from Secure Network Programming to Secure Sockets Layer. It has tighter security measures in place. The past versions have some serious security flaws, being vulnerable to external attacks that incapacitate all block ciphers.
In order to use TLS, one has to setup its connection to the server. He or she can either use a protocol-specific mechanism that tells the server to switch to the safer TLS connection when he or she is accessing private data or he or she can simply use a specific port number designated for TLS connections from the onset. This connection allows the data to be recorded through encryption or via a message authentication code.
The Wonderful World of Algorithms 