SSL 3.0

 SSL 3.0 aims at providing internet client server application coupled with practical security mechanism. SSL 3.0 is being used by the IETF Transport Layer Security working group as a base for their standards.

SSL 2.0 had a number of security weaknesses which SSL 3.0 aimed to correct. SSL 3.0 is a lot secure against comprehensive or cryptanalytic attacks on the MAC.

One must keep in mind that SSL 3.0 uses an older obsolete version of the HMAC construction. SSL 3.0 prevents cut and paste attacks. One defense against cut and paste attacks is to use independent session keys for every different context.

SSL 2.0 suffered from a serious design flaw as it used an insecure MAC but SSL 3.0 has taken care of this problem.

SSL 3.0 handshake protocol suffered from another design flaw. Here a server sends short lived public key parameters which are signed under long term certified signing key in the server key exchange message.