Secure communication

Inter-device communication is a serious security concern. Between large project errors, such as Heartbleed, or more advanced attacks such as BEAST and CRIME, secure methods of communication over a network are becoming more important. It should be remembered, however that encryption should be applied as one part of a larger security strategy. The compromise of an endpoint means that an attacker no longer needs to break the encryption used, but is able to view and manipulate messages as they are processed by the system.

This chapter will review several features around configuring TLS to secure both internal and external resources, and will call out specific categories of systems that should be given specific attention.

• Introduction to TLS and SSL
  • Certification authorities
  • TLS libraries
  • Cryptographic algorithms, cipher modes, and protocols
  • Summary
• TLS proxies and HTTP services
  • Examples
  • HTTP strict transport security
  • Perfect forward secrecy
• Secure reference architectures
  • SSL/TLS proxy in front
  • SSL/TLS on same physical hosts as API endpoints
  • SSL/TLS over load balancer
  • Cryptographic separation of external and internal environments