A comprehensive study of the evolution of SSL and TLS, from their origins to modern secure communication.
This repository contains the complete LaTeX source code of my Bachelor's thesis in Computer Engineering, focused on the design, evolution, and security of the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocols.
The thesis investigates how SSL evolved into TLS, analyzes the internal architecture of both protocols, explains the cryptographic mechanisms that enable secure communication, and examines the vulnerabilities that shaped the development of modern TLS.
The work covers the following topics:
- Historical evolution from SSL 3.0 to TLS 1.3
- SSL/TLS protocol architecture
- Record Protocol
- Handshake Protocol
- Detailed analysis of handshake messages
- Cipher Suites and cryptographic negotiation
- Public-key cryptography and digital certificates
- Key exchange algorithms
- Authentication and integrity mechanisms
- Session establishment and key derivation
- TLS 1.3 improvements over previous versions
- Major vulnerabilities and attacks (e.g. BEAST, CRIME, POODLE, FREAK, Heartbleed)
- Security implications and modern best practices
.
├── main.tex # Main LaTeX entry point
├── preamble.tex # LaTeX package configurations and styling
├── bibliography.bib # Bibliography citations database
├── .gitignore # Git ignore file for LaTeX build outputs
├── chapters/ # Main chapter-level wrappers (Introduction, SSL, etc.)
├── sections/ # Modular content sections split by chapter
└── figures/ # Image assets and modular TikZ diagrams
- LaTeX (Biber backend)
- TikZ
- PDFLaTeX
SSL and TLS are the cryptographic protocols that have protected Internet communications for decades. Their design has continuously evolved in response to advances in cryptography and the discovery of practical attacks against previous protocol versions.
This thesis presents a detailed technical analysis of SSL and TLS, describing their architecture, cryptographic primitives, handshake procedure, certificate-based authentication, key exchange mechanisms, and record protection. Particular attention is devoted to the historical evolution of the protocols and to the vulnerabilities that motivated successive redesigns, ultimately leading to the simplified and more secure architecture of TLS 1.3.
The objective is to provide a comprehensive understanding of how secure communication protocols operate and why their evolution has been fundamental to modern network security.
Compile the thesis using a standard LaTeX toolchain:
pdflatex main.tex
biber main
pdflatex main.tex
pdflatex main.texAlternatively, the project can be compiled using latexmk:
latexmk -pdf main.texThis repository is intended for academic and educational purposes.
Unless otherwise specified, all rights to the thesis content are reserved by the author.