SSL provides security for network connections. Specifically, SSL uses public-key encryption to provide:
Client and server authentication using certificates
Encryption, which prevents third parties from understanding transmitted data
Integrity checking, which detects whether transmitted data has been altered
Packets for other protocols can be embedded inside of SSL packets. A connection in which the application protocol is embedded inside of SSL is an SSL-tunnelled connection.
Both IIOP and HTTP can be tunnelled inside SSL, which means that these protocols take advantage of SSL security features. For example, HTTPS connections embed HTTP packets inside of SSL packets. Your Web browser creates a secure HTTP connection any time you load a page from a URL that begins with “https:”
See the following SSL-related chapters:
