Why Does Your Server Need SSL/TLS Offloading ?| SSL/TLS Offloading

SSL/TLS Offloading


Why Does Your Server Need SSL/TLS Offloading ?

SSl/TLS Encryption has become an industry standard across these past few years. Leading to secure communication being the default between clients and application servers. But this has led to some unforeseen overheads, mainly on the part of the application servers. To reduce this overhead and increase security we recommend SSL/TLS Offloading.




Why Use SSL/TLS Offloading ?


To understand the advantages of using SSL/TLS Offloading, we first need to have an idea of what SSL/TLS Encryption is:


SSL/TLS Encryption

The Secure Socket Layer(SSL), and Transport Layer Security(TLS) protocols are mainly used to provide additional levels of security between Clients and Servers. Primarily through the encryption of data through the two protocols.



Without SSL/TLS Encryption

Here the attacker is able to perform a Man in The Middle Attacks against the network, and if successful he would be able to gather sensitive information such as cookies or other authentication data.
Encrypted-SSL-TLS

Here the entire network is now deemed secure, as all the packets that pass from the client to the server and vice versa are encrypted.





How Does a Server Enforce SSL/TLS Encryption?


The current standard protocol used across the world is TLS 1.3 An upgraded version of the long-serving and often used TLS 1.2. It works through a procedure named the TLS 1.3 Handshake. Here’s a brief overview of how the handshake works:

  1. The TLS 1.3 handshake commences with the “Client Hello” message. The client then sends the list of supported cipher suites and the key agreement protocol of the server. The client then sends its key share.

  2. In reply to the “Client Hello” message, the server replies with the key agreement protocol. The message also contains in it the server’s key share, its certificate, as well as the “Server Finished” message.

  3. Now, the client checks the server certificate, generates keys as it has the key share of the server, and sends the “Client Finished” message. From here on, the encryption of the data begins.

For every connection made to the outside internet, the Application Server(Your server) will have to perform this handshake.




What Does SSL/TLS Offloading Do Here?


SSL/TLS Offloading adds a new server server to your internal network, which handles all the prerequisites and the implementation of SSL/TLS Encryption from your clients to your application servers.

SSL-TLS-Offloading



How Would Opting for SSL/TLS Offloading be Beneficial for You?


Using SSL/TLS Offloading can lead to marked improvements in two specific areas Performance And Security.


Performance Improvements when using SSL/TLS Offloading

  • Your application servers can now focus on more important tasks now.

  • The entire TLS Handshake process with every client will be handled miniOrange Load Balancer[mention load balancer before].

  • Scalable certificate management and user authentication.

  • Guaranteed lower latency with high volume traffic.


Security Improvements when using SSL/TLS Offloading

  • You achieve an end to end encryption of all requests, as miniOrange handles all encryption and decryption.

  • Allows for HTTPS inspection, and reverse proxying. Enabling higher levels of deterrents against attackers.

  • Completely secures your system against Man In The Middle Attacks.

  • Security patches – If new vulnerabilities pop up in the SSL/TLS protocols, only the miniOrange proxy servers would need to be patched.


What Happens to Your Network If You Enable SSL/TLS Offloading?



The miniOrange servers implement SSL/TLS Offloading through two different methods:

SSL Termination

The proxy server or load balancer used SSL offloading acts as the SSL terminator, which also acts as an edge device. When a client attempts to connect to a website, the client connects to the SSL terminator—that connection is HTTPS. But the connection between the SSL terminator and the application server is via HTTP.



SSL Bridging

SSL Bridging is extremely similar conceptually, except rather than sending the traffic and requests on via HTTP, it re-encrypts everything before sending it to the application server.


Both methods offer their own advantages, and the use of the method is made to suit the use case of the implementation.





If you still have any queries or want to know about how miniOrange can protect your website. Please feel free to reach out to us through https://www.miniorange.com/contact.

Related Articles

Hello there!

Need Help? We are right here!

support
Contact miniOrange Support
success

Thanks for your inquiry.

If you dont hear from us within 24 hours, please feel free to send a follow up email to info@xecurify.com