User's Manual

SSL and TLS in an Oracle Environment

7-2 Oracle Database Advanced Security Administrator's Guide

SSL and TLS in an Oracle Environment

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is an industry standard protocol originally designed by

Netscape Communications Corporation for securing network connections. SSL uses

RSA public key cryptography in conjunction with symmetric key cryptography to

provide authentication, encryption, and data integrity.

This section discusses the following topics:

■ Difference between SSL and TLS

■ About Using SSL

■ How SSL Works in an Oracle Environment: The SSL Handshake

Difference between SSL and TLS

Although SSL was primarily developed by Netscape Communications Corporation,

the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) took over development of it, with

Netscape's blessing, and renamed it Transport Layer Security (TLS). Essentially, TLS

is an incremental improvement to SSL version 3.0.

See Also: The TLS Protocol Version 1.0 [RFC 2246] at the IETF Web

site, which can be found at the following URL:

http://www.ietf.org

Note: To simplify discussion, this document uses the term "SSL"

where either SSL or TLS may be appropriate because SSL is the

most widely recognized term. However, where distinctions occur

between how you use or conﬁgure these protocols, this document

speciﬁes what is appropriate for either SSL or TLS.