The authentication aspect of HTTPS requires a trusted third party to sign server-side digital certificates. It protects against man-in-the-middle attacks, and the bidirectional encryption of communications between a client and server protects the communications against eavesdropping and tampering. The principal motivations for HTTPS are authentication of the accessed website, and protection of the privacy and integrity of the exchanged data while in transit. The protocol is therefore also referred to as HTTP over TLS, or HTTP over SSL.
In HTTPS, the communication protocol is encrypted using Transport Layer Security (TLS) or, formerly, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). It is used for secure communication over a computer network, and is widely used on the Internet. Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure ( HTTPS) is an extension of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).
