Cryptography
Cipher Suite
Definition
A named combination of cryptographic algorithms — key exchange, authentication, bulk encryption, and integrity — negotiated by protocols such as TLS for a given session.
Examples
- TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 is a recommended TLS 1.3 cipher suite.
- Legacy systems still offering TLS_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA should be retired.
Related terms
TLS (Transport Layer Security)
TLS (Transport Layer Security) — definition coming soon.
AES (Advanced Encryption Standard)
A NIST-standardized 128-bit block cipher with 128-, 192- or 256-bit keys, designed by Daemen and Rijmen and used as the dominant symmetric cipher worldwide.
ChaCha20
A modern stream cipher designed by Daniel J. Bernstein, using a 256-bit key and 96-bit nonce, widely deployed alongside Poly1305 as the AEAD ChaCha20-Poly1305.
ECDH
The elliptic-curve variant of the Diffie–Hellman key-exchange protocol, providing the same shared-secret functionality with smaller keys and faster operations.
RSA Algorithm
A public-key algorithm by Rivest, Shamir and Adleman (1977) whose security rests on the difficulty of factoring the product of two large prime numbers.
Perfect Forward Secrecy
A protocol property ensuring that the compromise of long-term keys does not allow decryption of past session traffic.