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Remove insecure TLS version fallback

Category
Security
Type
New or changed feature
Status
Removed (Chrome 50)
Intent stage
None

Summary

TLS has a version negotiation mechanism to securely introduce new versions without breaking compatibility. Yet buggy servers implemented this wrong in the past, so browsers were forced to add (non-standard) insecure fallbacks to work around this. Unlike TLS's actual version negotiation, the fallback is insecure. Network attackers can downgrade to weaker versions, despite both client and server supporting newer, more secure versions. Note that this does *not* remove TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1.

Standards & signals

View on chromestatus.com