SSL-How Does It Work? Print

Unlike displaying a regular web page, when a person requests a secured web page (https://), the browser and the server must go through a series of requests and acknowledgements, which take place automatically. Here is a brief outline of what happens:

	You enter a URL such as https://www.mysite.com in your browser window. The https indicates that you want your browser to initiate a secure session with the server
	The server responds by sending the site's certificate
	The browser checks the certificate information for validity
	The browser then creates a session key, which is encrypted with the server's public key, and sends it to the server
	The server then decrypts this information using it's private key