Acronym for Secure Hypertext Transport Protocol, it is an extension of the World Wide Web’s Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP) that supports secure commercial transactions on the Web. Secure HTTP provides this support in two ways: by assuring vendors that the customers attempting to buy the vendors’ wares are who they say they are (authentication) and by encrypting sensitive information (such as credit card numbers) so that it cannot be intercepted while en route. Secure HTTP was developed by Enterprise Integration Technology (EIT) and the National Center for Supercomputer Applications (NCSA), with the subsequent commercial development of Terisa Systems. Netscape Communications developed a competing security technology, the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol.
Technipages Explains S-HTTP
S-HTTP is the acronym for Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol, which is a program for securing communications and transactions on the net. It was designed to secure communication on a web page by firstly validating the users then encrypting the communication.
S-HTTP was replaced by HTTPS, which was also released around the same time, but HTTPS’s adoption by Microsoft boosted its adoption as Microsoft was the most used operating systems and it grew far beyond S-HTTP’s reach. S-HTTP being an extension of HTTP only encrypt the data in the HTTP message, this makes HTTP transactions to be regarded as not being encrypted. It is better to put as it secures transactions over the channel, it does not secure the entire channel, HTTPS secures the entire channel. S-HTTP relies on asymmetric encryption to secure messages.
Developed by Eric Rescorla and Allan Mischiffmon in 19999, it was designed alongside HTTPS, however, HTTPS’s adoption of Microsoft ended up making it the standard for securing transactions on the web. Not all web browsers and servers support S-HTTP.
Common Uses of S-HTTP
- S-HTTP is the acronym for Secure Hypertext Transfer protocol, for securing communications and transactions on the internet.
- The S-HTTP uses asymmetric encryption to the messages and transactions being made on the internet.
- S-HTTP was replaced by HTTPS, owing to HTTPS’s adoption by Microsoft, S-HTTP was adopted by Netscape.
Common Misuses of S-HTTP
- S-HTTP does not rely on asymmetric encryption to secure messages and transactions over the webpage.
- The S in S-HTTP stands for Storage, the extension tool is used for storing web messages and transactions.
