Better WordPress Performance and Security With TLS 1.3

TLS 1.3 is the fourth version of the Transport Layer Security (TLS) version. To get a site’s traffic secured, you must have SSL/TLS certificates. These certificates encrypt the information transit, thwarting any data theft or tampering.

The encryption is in cryptographic protocols. These protocols comprise algorithms and ciphers responsible for data encryption.

This new version offers significant improvements over both the performance and security of earlier TLS versions, and all modern browsers have already implemented support for the protocol.

Table of Contents

• 3 Big Performance Improvements of TLS 1.3:
  • 1. One single round-trip
  • 2. Data is sent quicker
  • 3. Connections are recycled
• More secure ciphers
• Wetopi supports TLS 1.3
• How to check the TLS version?

3 Big Performance Improvements of TLS 1.3:

1. One single round-trip

One significant difference is the reduced number of round-trips when performing connections to secured websites. Older versions of the TLS protocol requires two complete round-trips before the client could send the application data. With TLS v1.3, it requires only one round-trip! 

Having one less round trip may not seem that much, but it halves the time needed to complete the action. Depending on the speed of your internet connection, this increases the speed hundreds of milliseconds quicker. And this is noticeable in mobile devices.

2. Data is sent quicker

Another big advantage is that our server can send application data in response to the client’s first handshake message! 

This means network latency has less impact on the time required to establish a connection.

3. Connections are recycled

This performance advantage is the called “Zero round trip” (0-RTT)

If you return to a website, your browser sends a previously obtained ticket ( the PSK, Pre-Shared Key). This is kind of self-encrypted and self-authenticated value that contains the data from the previous connection with the server.

With this Pre-Shared Key you can send data on the first message to the server for recently visited sites.

More secure ciphers

A major disadvantage with TLS 1.2 with improper configuration, will allow websites to be vulnerable to attacks. TLS 1.3 removes the obsolete and insecure features from TLS 1.2

This new TLS 1.3 will only support sessions that provide Perfect Forward Secrecy, helping to prevent a replay attack. This means that someone can’t take a copy of your encrypted traffic data and play it back later using brute force techniques to decrypt it.

TLS 1.3 has encrypted handshake which means the session and it encrypts the previous setup

Wetopi supports TLS 1.3

Wetopi is one of the early adopters and launched TLS 1.3 on February 12th, 2019. 

Now, all our customers can take advantage of the web security and performance benefits of TLS 1.3

How to check the TLS version?

With Chrome the process is simple:

1. Open Chrome DevTools from Chrome’s menu,
2. Click into “More tools”
3. Click into “Developer Tools.”
4. Once the developers’ panel is open, select the “Security” tab.

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