· 1 min read
TLS-ECDHE-PSK-WITH-CHACHA20-POLY1305-SHA256 Cipher Suite
A breakdown of the Cipher Suite TLS_ECDHE_PSK_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256, its strengths, and its weaknesses.
Key Exchange Mechanism
Elliptic Curve Diffie Hellman Ephemeral - ECDHE
Grade - A
ECDHE (Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman Ephemeral) is used because it enhances security through the use of ephemeral keys, which are temporary and unique for each session. This ensures that even if one session’s key is compromised, past and future sessions remain secure. ECDHE provides perfect forward secrecy, meaning that the compromise of long-term keys does not affect the confidentiality of past communications. The ephemeral nature of the keys significantly reduces the risk of long-term data breaches and enhances the overall robustness of the cryptographic protocol.
Authentication
Pre-Shared Key - PSK
Grade - A
PSK (Pre-Shared Key) cipher suites are used for authentication in secure communication protocols like TLS. They allow parties to establish a shared secret beforehand, ensuring confidentiality and integrity of data exchanges without the overhead of public key infrastructure (PKI), suitable for constrained environments or specific security requirements.
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.
