SSL Inspection
Secure socket layer (SSL) inspection is the process of inspecting encrypted HTTPS traffic.
- Without SSL inspection, network administrators cannot monitor encrypted traffic for threats
- essential for:
- verifying that website certificates are valid
- helping protect against on-path (man-in-the-middle) attacks
- and detecting traffic encrypted with anything other than a trusted third-party certificate
- helps enforce organizational policies
- ensuring that employees comply with acceptable use policies and do not attempt to access restricted content or share/upload restricted data
- often accomplished by installing digital certificates on end devices that allow encrypted traffic to be intercepted, decrypted, and inspected by security tools before being re-encrypted and forwarded to the intended destination
- Web proxies, load balancers, next-gen firewalls, and similar devices all support this capability