TLS-ECDH-ECDSA-WITH-AES-128-GCM-SHA256 Cipher Suite

Key Exchange Mechanism

Elliptic Curve Diffie Hellman - ECDH

Grade - B

Static Elliptic Curve Diffie Hellman (ECDH) does not use ephemeral (temporary) keys, meaning it violates perfect forward secrecy. ECDHE should be used in preference.

Authentication

Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm - ECDSA

Grade - A

ECDSA (Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm) is used in cipher suites for authentication and integrity verification. Its efficiency in generating and verifying digital signatures makes it suitable for secure communication protocols like TLS, ensuring data confidentiality and integrity during exchanges over networks.

Cipher

Advanced Encryption Standard - AES

Grade - A

AES should be used in cipher suites because it offers strong security with efficient performance, large block size (128 bits), and resistance to known attacks. Its widespread adoption and thorough analysis by the cryptographic community ensure reliability and robustness for encrypting sensitive data.

Hash

Secure Hash Algorithm 256 Bit - SHA256

Grade - A

Improving greatly from SHA1, SHA-256 and above create secure hashes through robust cryptographic algorithms that ensure collision resistance and preimage resistance. They process input data in fixed-size blocks, applying complex mathematical transformations that make it computationally impractical to reverse-engineer the original data from its hash.

Key Size

128 Bit - 128

Grade - A

128-bit symmetric encryption keys are considered secure because they provide an astronomically large number of possible combinations (2^128), making brute-force attacks computationally infeasible with current technology. This level of security is sufficient for most practical purposes and is widely adopted in various encryption protocols.

Cipher Mode

Galois/Counter Mode - GCM

Grade - A

GCM (Galois Counter Mode) is a mode of operation for block ciphers, offering both encryption and authentication. Widely used in cipher suites, GCM ensures data confidentiality and integrity with high efficiency and performance. It combines the Counter (CTR) mode for encryption with a Galois field-based authentication tag for data integrity. GCM’s parallelizable nature makes it particularly fast and suitable for high-speed networks and secure communications. By incorporating GCM, cipher suites provide robust security against unauthorized access and tampering, making it a preferred choice for modern cryptographic protocols.