ITPEC FE Morning October 2022 Question 39
Which of the following is the protocol that is used together with HTTP in HTTPS?
Explanation
TLS — HTTPS is HTTP carried over a TLS connection.
TLS, the successor of SSL, sits between HTTP and TCP. It authenticates the server with its certificate, agrees on session keys, and then encrypts and integrity-protects every HTTP message. HTTPS uses port 443 instead of HTTP's port 80.
Answer (c)
Why not others:
- •(a) SHA — a family of hash functions; TLS uses them inside its cipher suites, but SHA is an algorithm, not a protocol that HTTP runs over
- •(b) SSH — a separate secure protocol for remote login and file transfer (port 22), unrelated to HTTPS
- •(d) VPN — a general way to tunnel private traffic across a public network (IPsec or SSL-VPN), not a part of HTTPS
Key rule: Many secure protocols are an existing protocol over TLS: HTTPS, SMTPS, IMAPS, FTPS. Keep protocols apart from the algorithms (AES, SHA) they use.
Security · AI-written, may contain errors
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