How SSL Works

Some details are left out for the sake of simplicity. SSL works similarly to this for a client-server situation:

  1. A client requests a secure connection to a server.
  2. The server sends its authentication certificate and its public key to the client.
  3. The client verifies the certificate. If the certificate is valid, the client sends the server a randomly generated encryption key encoded with the server’s public key.
  4. The server decodes the encryption key using its private key.
  5. The client and server can now exchange encoded data.
pict

Block Diagram of How SSL Works

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