As organizations increasingly rely on encrypted communications to protect sensitive data and ensure the privacy of their users, malicious actors have adapted by using encryption to conceal threats. SSL/TLS encryption, while crucial for securing communications, has introduced challenges for security and monitoring solutions. To address these challenges, in the past, organizations turned to web proxy solutions with SSL decryption capabilities.
The advent of TLS 1.3 and the adoption of certificate pinning by applications have introduced challenges for SSL decryption, threatening the ability to inspect and secure network traffic effectively:
|
Item |
Challenges of SSL Decryption for Modern Apps |
|---|---|
| 1 |
Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS):
|
| 2 |
Improved Encryption:
|
| 3 |
Certificate Pinning:
|
| 4 |
Security and Privacy Concerns:
|
| 5 |
Legal and Regulatory Compliance:
|
| 6 |
Performance Impact:
|
| 7 |
Degrading User Experience:
|
| 8 |
Visibility Limitations:
|
| 9 |
Complex Key Management:
|
| 10 |
Evolving Security Protocols:
|
Rather than relying solely on SSL inspection, organizations can benefit from AI-powered solutions that offer advanced threat prevention while preserving the privacy and integrity of encrypted communications.
AI-powered solutions leverage machine learning and behavioral analysis to proactively identify and mitigate threats within encrypted traffic. These solutions can recognize abnormal patterns and behaviors, making it possible to detect and block malicious activity without the need for decryption. This approach not only ensures security but also addresses the concerns associated with SSL inspection such as those related to privacy, compliance, and performance degradation.
Exium currently does not support SSL decryption in our broad platform as we see this becoming more and more complex with TLS 1.3 and certificate pinning etc. The list of apps that need to bypass SSL inspection to work properly continues to increase. Exium offers an AI-powered approach to encrypted traffic by scanning traffic for threats and intrusion at the endpoints. Our SASE client software includes modules that perform local scanning backed by AI powered analytics in the CyberMesh to find and eliminate threats that may hide inside the encrypted traffic.
In Exium's on-prem Cyber Gateway, we offer on-demand Web proxy capability with selective decryption policies to address very specific use cases such as visibility into search engine queries. We do not recommend to use this broadly due to the concerns associated with SSL decryption.
To learn more about how to secure your apps, users, devices, network and locations effectively, contact Exium at hello@exium.net for a consultation or demonstration of our solutions.