Since there were so many TLS security bugs due to it's complexity, is there any push to replace it with something simpler and with less choices and attack surface?
Google gave us HTTP/2/3, but don't seem to care about fixing TLS.
Google gave us HTTP/2/3, but don't seem to care about fixing TLS.
For custom protocols, libsodium would be a popular modern approach. If you need compatibility with TLS, try locking down TLS to only version 1.3, or if you can't do that, lock it down to only TLS 1.2 with tls_ecdhe_rsa_with_aes_128_gcm_sha256.
https://hynek.me/articles/hardening-your-web-servers-ssl-cip...
OpenSSL the implementation was forked a few times also with the goal of improving security. Notable forks: LibreSSL, BoringSSL.
PS: for all those confused why OpenSSL skipped version 2, it seems it's because FIPS builds identified themselves as version 2 (thanks to poster below!) Also the changelog explains the new version naming scheme:
"""
Switch to a new version scheme using three numbers MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH.
Major releases (indicated by incrementing the MAJOR release number) may introduce incompatible API/ABI changes.
Minor releases (indicated by incrementing the MINOR release number) may introduce new features but retain API/ABI compatibility.
Patch releases (indicated by incrementing the PATCH number) are intended for bug fixes and other improvements of existing features only (like improving performance or adding documentation) and retain API/ABI compatibility.
"""
Quoted from: https://www.openssl.org/news/changelog.html So there won't be a 3.0.0a, 3.0.0b, etc. They want to make it clear it will be 3.0.1, 3.0.2, etc
Google is working on BoringSSL / Tink, which I believe is API compatible, but supports a lot less features. However I think a better way forward might be RustTLS, an implementation which is memory-safe. There is already support in Curl[1], showing there is a path forward for usage in languages other than Rust.
[1] https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2021/02/09/curl-supports-rustls/
[1] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc9000#section-1 [2] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc9001