Analysis of the SSL 3.0 Protocol

D. Wagner and B. Schneier

The Second USENIX Workshop on Electronic Commerce Proceedings, USENIX Press, November 1996, pp. 29-40.

ABSTRACT: The SSL protocol is intended to provide a practical, application-layer, widely applicable connection-oriented 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.

[published version - postscript] [published version - PDF (Acrobat)]
[revised version - postscript] [revised version - PDF (Acrobat)]

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