TLS End of Life: What Is It & Will Your Business Be Affected?
November 15th, 2018 by admin
The largest web browsers have all announced that they will be ending support for applications that use old versions of TLS by 2020. You may not know what TLS is, but this change could affect your business. This is what you need to know, to be sure your infrastructure will still be supported.TLS is an encryption protocol, which means it is a method of securing online interactions, with web pages, chat rooms, email etc. The first version, 1.0, was created in 1995 and is considered highly insecure along with the second version, 1.1. The secure versions of TLS were implemented in 2008.
Only a small percentage of connections are made on these exceptionally vulnerable versions today, but legacy systems and software may lose browser support soon. If the software, or web app your business uses, was created before 2008, you might be one of the few effected.
Most developers can be easily contacted by phone or email, and will be able to answer questions about this TLS support change and if it will matter for the software you use.
If you are unsure how old the software your business runs is, consider reaching out to the developer. With legacy software, developers may be long out of business or otherwise unavailable. In this case, gather information about the most recent version of the software and it's release date. If there have been many versions released since 2008, it has almost certainly adopted the new TLS versions that are safe.
Senior Program Manager at Microsoft, Kyle Pflug, said this was the reason for the change «While we aren't aware of significant vulnerabilities with our up-to-date implementations of TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1, vulnerable third-party implementations do exist. Moving to newer versions helps ensure a more secure Web for everyone.»
For the average computer user these changes will go unnoticed, but web browsing as a whole will be more secure because of them.
- Kender Ostlund
Posted in: Protection, Security, Technology