The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has published standards for improvements to SSL which add support for the recently ratified Advanced Encryption Standard. Request for Comments (RFC) 3268 adds support for AES to the TLS protocol (Transport Layer Security - which. . .
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has published standards for improvements to SSL which add support for the recently ratified Advanced Encryption Standard. Request for Comments (RFC) 3268 adds support for AES to the TLS protocol (Transport Layer Security - which was formerly known as SSL). As well as adding support for AES, the revision makes it easier and more efficient to support forward secrecy.

Forward secrecy protects past data if a server's key is stolen. Without this measure, if a server's key is compromised, an attacker might be able decrypt previous sessions and decrypt old traffic, thereby accessing sensitive data which might include credit card details and the like. Forward secrecy, which up to now how only been supported with computational intensive ciphers like Triple DES, guards against this type of attack by retiring a server's key.

Pete Chown, director of security developer Skygate, and author of the RFC, urged developers writing TLS software to include support for forward secrecy and AES in order to bolster Internet security.