How can you secure data that is being sent between applications across an untrusted network? The Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol, Version 1, provides one answer to this common security question. TLS, along with the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol, Versions 2.0 and 3.0 authenticates and secures data transfers by using certificate-based authentication and symmetric encryption keys.

This section explains what TLS and SSL are, how TLS and SSL use the Security Support Provider Interface (SSPI) and Schannel SSP to secure the transfer of data, and which tools and settings are available for configuring TLS and SSL.

In this section

• What is TLS/SSL?
  
• How TLS/SSL Works
  
• TLS/SSL Tools and Settings