In the last few years, we have witnessed a wide range of attacks on the SSL/TLS mechanism. In this article, we will try to cover various attacks that were prominent in the field of cryptography. Transport layer security (TLS) ensures integrity of data transmitted between two parties (server and client) and also provides strong authentication for both parties. The attacks launched in the last few years have exploited various features in the TLS mechanism. We are going to discuss these attacks one by one.
The Heartbleed bug is a serious vulnerability in the popular OpenSSL cryptographic software library. It allows an attacker to read the memory of systems using certain versions of OpenSSL, potentially allowing them to access user names, passwords, or even the secret cryptographic keys of the server used for SSL. Obtaining these keys would allow malicious users to observe all communications on that system, allowing further exploit. We will discuss this vulnerability too.