SSL/TLS Protocol Updates: What Your Servers Should Be Using Now

SSL/TLS is no longer a one-time “set it and forget it” checkbox. Browser vendors, CA/B Forum rules, new vulnerabilities and performance expectations keep reshaping what a secure and modern HTTPS stack looks like. If your servers are still running the same TLS configuration from a few years ago, you are almost certainly carrying unnecessary risk, leaving performance on the table, or both.

In this article, we will walk through the current state of SSL/TLS protocol versions, cipher suites and certificate practices, and then turn that into a practical checklist you can actually apply on your web servers, load balancers and API backends. We will also share how we handle SSL/TLS protocol updates on dchost.com shared hosting, VPS, dedicated servers and colocation environments, so you can benchmark your own setup against a hardened baseline.

Whether you run one WordPress site or a portfolio of e‑commerce and SaaS projects, understanding today’s TLS expectations helps you avoid browser warnings, failed compliance scans and latent security bugs. Let’s go through what has changed, what is about to change, and what you should configure right now.

Why SSL/TLS Keeps Changing

From the outside, HTTPS looks simple: buy a certificate, enable it, done. Under the hood, SSL/TLS is a complex protocol family that has to evolve continuously. There are three big drivers behind ongoing SSL/TLS protocol updates:

• Vulnerabilities and cryptographic research: Attacks such as BEAST, CRIME, POODLE, Lucky13, Heartbleed and others exposed weaknesses in older protocol versions and cipher suites. The response is always the same: deprecate what is weak, standardize safer options.
• Browser and OS ecosystem pressure: Chrome, Firefox, Safari and major operating systems decide what they will accept. When they mark a protocol or algorithm as insecure, the practical lifetime of that feature is over.
• Performance and user experience: Modern TLS also needs to be fast. Features like 1‑RTT and 0‑RTT handshakes in TLS 1.3, better session resumption and HTTP/2/HTTP/3 integration exist to make secure connections cheaper in terms of latency.

As a result, staying secure is not just about buying the right certificate type. It is also about keeping your protocol and cipher configuration aligned with current best practices. If you want a deeper dive into the security side, we already covered many real‑world attack scenarios in our article “SSL/TLS Protocol Updates and Vulnerabilities Explained for Real‑World Servers”.

Where We Are Now: TLS Versions and Deprecations

Before talking about ciphers or headers, you need the right protocol baseline. Here is the current big picture for TLS versions on public‑facing websites and APIs.

TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1: Consider Them Dead

TLS 1.0 dates back to 1999, TLS 1.1 to 2006. Both suffer from known weaknesses and lack modern features. All major browsers have removed support for them or show strong warnings when they are the only option.

• Security: A range of attacks (BEAST, POODLE and others) forced workarounds that still leave these protocols fragile.
• Compliance: PCI‑DSS and similar standards now require TLS 1.2 or higher for cardholder data. Many security scanners automatically fail endpoints that still allow 1.0/1.1.
• Practical impact: The remaining user base that truly needs TLS 1.0/1.1 is tiny and usually running unpatched, unsupported operating systems.

Action: On modern infrastructure, you should completely disable TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1. If you still have a legacy B2B integration that insists on them, isolate that integration to a dedicated endpoint and plan a firm migration deadline.

TLS 1.2: The Current Baseline

TLS 1.2 is now the minimum acceptable standard on the public internet. It is mature, widely supported and, with the right cipher selection, still very secure.

• Support: All modern browsers and operating systems support it. Even older clients like Windows 7 (with updates) can use TLS 1.2.
• Security: TLS 1.2 is safe when configured with AEAD ciphers (for example AES‑GCM or ChaCha20‑Poly1305) and ephemeral key exchange (ECDHE). Problems arise mainly when people keep old CBC ciphers or static RSA key exchange enabled.
• Longevity: TLS 1.2 will remain with us for a long time, even as TLS 1.3 adoption grows.

Action: Every public site or API you operate should support TLS 1.2 with a hardened cipher suite that prefers ECDHE and AEAD ciphers and removes obsolete algorithms like 3DES, RC4 and export‑grade suites.

TLS 1.3: The Modern Default You Should Prefer

TLS 1.3 (RFC 8446) is the current generation of the protocol. It simplifies the handshake, removes a lot of insecure legacy baggage and improves latency.

• Fewer round‑trips: TLS 1.3 typically completes the handshake in one round‑trip, which directly improves TTFB and Core Web Vitals. With session resumption, it can even do 0‑RTT in some cases.
• Clean cipher design: Many older, risky options (CBC, static RSA, etc.) were simply removed. The protocol forces you to use strong modern ciphers.
• Browser support: All major browsers and current OS versions support TLS 1.3.

If your server or load balancer stack can enable TLS 1.3, you should. In another article, we explained how to do this in detail for Nginx and Apache in our TLS 1.3 and modern cipher configuration guide.

Action: Enable TLS 1.3 wherever possible and configure it to coexist with TLS 1.2. For now, the recommended combination for public sites is:

• Enabled: TLS 1.2, TLS 1.3
• Disabled: SSLv3, TLS 1.0, TLS 1.1

Modern Cipher Suites, Key Exchange and Certificates

Once you know which protocol versions you are supporting, the next step is to choose cipher suites and certificate parameters that match current expectations.

Drop Legacy Ciphers and Prefer AEAD

Many legacy cipher suites survived for years simply for compatibility. Now they increasingly cause problems in security scans and sometimes degrade performance.

On TLS 1.2, your goal should be to prefer AEAD ciphers such as:

• TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
• TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
• TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
• TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
• TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256
• TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256

What you should be phasing out or already have removed:

• CBC‑mode ciphers (for example AES‑CBC without GCM)
• 3DES, RC4, export‑grade ciphers
• Anything using static RSA key exchange instead of ECDHE

Action: Review your web server or TLS terminator configuration and ensure only E/CHDHE + AEAD cipher suites are enabled for TLS 1.2. TLS 1.3 uses a separate, limited set of secure cipher IDs by design, so most of the fine‑tuning effort is on TLS 1.2.

Ephemeral Key Exchange and Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS)

Modern SSL/TLS should always use ephemeral key exchange (ECDHE/DHE) which provides Perfect Forward Secrecy. That means even if your server’s long‑term private key is compromised later, past sessions cannot be decrypted because they used unique session keys negotiated per handshake.

When you see cipher names with ECDHE (Elliptic Curve Diffie‑Hellman Ephemeral), you are getting PFS. Ensure your configuration does not fall back to older static RSA ciphers as a last resort.

RSA vs ECDSA Certificates

Until recently, most sites used RSA certificates only. Today, you can combine RSA and ECDSA certificates to get both compatibility and performance.

• RSA: Still needed for compatibility with older clients and some enterprise environments. Recommended minimum key size is 2048 bits; 3072 is common for high‑security deployments.
• ECDSA: Uses elliptic curves, provides the same security with smaller keys and faster handshakes. Particularly useful on high‑traffic sites and mobile‑heavy audiences.

On Nginx and Apache, you can configure both an ECDSA and an RSA certificate for the same hostname and let modern clients prefer ECDSA while older ones fall back to RSA. We explored this dual‑certificate strategy in detail in our article “Serving dual ECDSA + RSA certificates on Nginx and Apache”.

Certificate Lifetimes and Automation

Another important “update” is not in the protocol itself but in certificate policy. Certificate lifetimes have been getting shorter over the years to reduce the impact of key compromise and mis‑issuance.

• Most public CAs now issue certificates for 90 days or 398 days maximum.
• Browsers and the CA/B Forum are discussing even shorter maximum lifetimes in the future.
• This makes automation essential. Manually renewing certificates once a year was annoying; doing it every 90 days is unrealistic at scale.

Protocols like ACME (used by Let’s Encrypt and others) exist precisely to solve this. On dchost.com, we integrate ACME‑based auto‑issuance in our shared hosting and VPS environments so that standard DV certificates renew automatically without your intervention.

If you are choosing between certificate types for corporate or e‑commerce sites, we recommend reading our guide “DV vs OV vs EV SSL Certificates for Corporate and E‑Commerce Websites” to align the protocol side with the right validation level.

Recent and Emerging TLS Features You Should Know

Beyond the basics of protocol versions and ciphers, several newer TLS‑adjacent features are becoming increasingly important for both security and performance.

OCSP Stapling and Must‑Staple

When a browser connects to your site, it needs to know whether your certificate is still valid or has been revoked. Traditionally, it would query the CA’s OCSP responder directly, which adds latency and leaks some browsing behavior to the CA.

OCSP stapling improves this by having the web server periodically fetch the OCSP response and “staple” it into the TLS handshake. The browser gets revocation information quickly, privately and with fewer network hops.

Action: Enable OCSP stapling on your web servers and load balancers. Many modern configurations consider OCSP stapling part of a “must have” baseline, not an optional tweak.

HSTS and HSTS Preload

HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) tells browsers to always use HTTPS for your domain and optionally its subdomains for a specified period of time. This eliminates protocol‑downgrade attacks and user mistakes (typing http:// instead of https://).

With HSTS preload, you can even have your domain baked into browser lists so they will use HTTPS from the first request, before any header is received.

Action: Once you have a stable HTTPS setup and HTTP→HTTPS redirects in place, enable HSTS with a gradually increasing max-age, then consider submitting to the HSTS preload list when you are confident in your long‑term HTTPS strategy. We also discussed HSTS implications for canonical domains in our article “www vs non‑www canonical domains, 301 redirects and HSTS”.

ALPN, HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 (QUIC)

Modern browsers negotiate application protocols such as HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 over TLS using ALPN (Application‑Layer Protocol Negotiation). Your TLS configuration therefore directly affects your ability to use faster HTTP versions.

• HTTP/2 runs over TLS and brings multiplexing, header compression and other improvements.
• HTTP/3 uses QUIC over UDP and requires TLS 1.3; it is particularly beneficial for high‑latency or mobile connections.

Action: Ensure your TLS stack is configured with ALPN support and strong protocols/ciphers so you can safely enable HTTP/2 and, where available, HTTP/3. For a detailed look at how these protocol choices affect SEO and Core Web Vitals, see our article “How HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 (QUIC) really affect SEO and Core Web Vitals”.

Post‑Quantum TLS (PQ‑TLS) Experiments

There is a lot of discussion around quantum computers and their impact on cryptography. While practical, large‑scale quantum attacks are not here yet, standards bodies are preparing post‑quantum secure key exchange algorithms to use in TLS.

Today this is mostly experimental and enabled only in specialized environments (for example, hybrid X25519 + post‑quantum key exchange). For most public websites, it is too early to deploy PQ‑TLS in production, but it is worth keeping an eye on these developments if you operate long‑lived sensitive data flows.

Practical Server‑Side Checklist for SSL/TLS Protocol Updates

Now let’s convert all this into a concrete checklist you can go through on your web servers, proxies and load balancers. The exact syntax will differ between Nginx, Apache, HAProxy or your reverse proxy, but the principles are the same.

1. Set the Right Protocol Versions

• Disable: SSLv3, TLS 1.0, TLS 1.1.
• Enable: TLS 1.2, TLS 1.3.
• If you have a legacy integration that absolutely requires TLS 1.0/1.1, isolate it on a separate hostname or listener and firewall it tightly.

2. Harden Cipher Suites

• On TLS 1.2, allow only E/CHDHE + AEAD ciphers (AES‑GCM, ChaCha20‑Poly1305).
• Remove 3DES, RC4, export‑grade suites and static RSA ciphers.
• Keep the cipher list short and explicit; do not rely on “default” cipher lists from old distributions.

3. Prefer Perfect Forward Secrecy

• Ensure your ciphers use ECDHE or DHE key exchange.
• Disable any suites that do not provide PFS.

4. Use Strong Certificates and Automate Renewal

• Use at least RSA 2048‑bit keys; consider 3072‑bit or ECDSA for high‑security or high‑traffic workloads.
• Where possible, serve ECDSA + RSA dual certificates for best compatibility and speed.
• Automate renewal via ACME (Let’s Encrypt or commercial CA with ACME support) to avoid manual errors and expiry incidents.

5. Enable OCSP Stapling

• Configure OCSP stapling on your TLS terminators.
• Monitor logs for OCSP errors (for example, timeouts, invalid responses) so you don’t silently lose stapling over time.

6. Enforce HTTPS and Consider HSTS

• Redirect all HTTP traffic to HTTPS with 301 status codes.
• After validating a stable HTTPS setup, enable HSTS with a conservative max-age and gradually raise it.
• Decide whether to include subdomains and whether you are ready for HSTS preload (remember: preload is harder to roll back).

7. Integrate with HTTP/2 and HTTP/3

• Ensure your TLS stack supports ALPN.
• Enable HTTP/2 for all modern clients.
• Where supported by your stack and CDN, enable HTTP/3 (QUIC) and test carefully under different network conditions.

8. Test with External Tools and Ongoing Monitoring

• Use online scanners (for example, SSL Labs‑style tools) to verify your overall grade and surface weak ciphers or protocol issues.
• Integrate certificate expiry monitoring so you get alerts well before certificates expire. For multi‑domain portfolios, we recommend approaches like those in our guide “Monitoring SSL certificate expiry across many domains”.
• Re‑run tests after major OS or web server upgrades; defaults can and do change.

How We Handle SSL/TLS Protocol Updates at dchost.com

Because SSL/TLS changes continuously, we treat it as a core part of our hosting platform lifecycle, not an afterthought. Here is how we approach it across our services.

• Shared hosting: We maintain hardened, centrally managed TLS configurations on our web clusters. Old protocols and weak ciphers are removed platform‑wide, so your sites inherit modern defaults without you manually editing config files.
• VPS hosting: You get full control over your TLS configuration, but we provide up‑to‑date documentation and sample configs aligned with current best practices. Our support team can review your Nginx or Apache setup and suggest safer alternatives.
• Dedicated servers and colocation: For customers managing their own hardware, we help design the front‑end TLS termination architecture, including load balancers, dual‑stack IPv4/IPv6, anycast DNS and integration with CDNs, so you can keep HTTPS fast and secure even at scale.
• Certificate automation: Where possible, we integrate ACME automation so that standard DV certificates are issued and renewed transparently. For OV/EV certificates that require manual renewal, we help design reminder and rotation procedures.

We also actively follow CA/B Forum ballots, browser roadmaps and TLS library updates. When something changes (for example, a protocol deprecation, a new minimum key size or a vulnerable cipher), we update our baselines and communicate the impact to our customers. That is part of why we publish articles like “Staying ahead of SSL/TLS security updates on your servers”—to turn protocol changes into practical steps, not surprises.

Migration Scenarios: From Legacy TLS to Modern HTTPS

To make this more concrete, let’s look at two typical migration scenarios we see when customers move projects onto dchost.com or modernize existing setups.

Scenario 1: Legacy LAMP Application on an Old TLS Stack

A customer arrives with a PHP/MySQL application running on an older LAMP stack. Their current hosting still supports TLS 1.0 and 1.1, uses a long, uncurated cipher list and a single RSA certificate issued years ago.

In a workshop with their dev and security teams, we typically do the following:

1. Inventory: Identify all entry points (websites, APIs, admin panels) and check their current TLS configuration with automated scanners.
2. Baseline decision: Agree to support only TLS 1.2 and 1.3 externally. If they truly need legacy support for a very old integration, we design a separate legacy endpoint behind a firewall.
3. Config update: On the new VPS or dedicated server, configure Nginx or Apache to use a modern cipher set, enable OCSP stapling, HSTS and HTTP/2, plus certificate automation.
4. Cutover with monitoring: Move traffic in a controlled way, monitor logs for TLS handshake failures, and react if any internal tool unexpectedly breaks.

In most cases, the outcome is a cleaner SSL Labs report, faster initial page loads and fewer maintenance headaches around certificate renewals.

Scenario 2: E‑Commerce Store Moving to TLS 1.3 and HTTP/3

Another common scenario is an online store that already uses TLS 1.2 with reasonable ciphers but wants to push for better performance and higher security grades as part of a Core Web Vitals and SEO initiative.

In this case, the migration plan looks like:

1. Enable TLS 1.3: On the front‑end web servers or load balancers, enabling TLS 1.3 usually requires only a config change and a restart, as modern Linux distributions ship with TLS 1.3‑capable OpenSSL or equivalent libraries.
2. Refine ciphers: Simplify the TLS 1.2 cipher list to ECDHE + AEAD only, and verify ECDSA support if we deploy dual certs.
3. Turn on HTTP/2 and, where available, HTTP/3: This helps multiplex many asset requests over fewer connections and mitigates latency spikes on mobile.
4. Monitor business metrics: Track checkout completion rate, TTFB and first contentful paint before and after rollout.

For many stores, especially those using heavy platforms like WooCommerce or Magento, the combination of TLS 1.3 + HTTP/2/3 + optimized caching provides noticeable gains. We discuss similar server‑side performance optimizations extensively in our article “Server‑side Core Web Vitals tuning for better TTFB, LCP and INP”.

When Should You Review Your SSL/TLS Configuration?

Many teams update TLS only when a scanner complains or a compliance audit fails. That is risky. A healthier pattern is to plan regular, low‑drama reviews and couple them with other lifecycle events.

• At least annually: Run a full TLS review across all public endpoints once a year. Adjust protocol versions, ciphers and headers based on current best practices.
• After major OS upgrades: Distribution upgrades sometimes change OpenSSL defaults or library behavior. Re‑validate that your previously hardened cipher lists are still applied as expected.
• When adding new domains or subdomains: Ensure they inherit your hardened defaults and are not set up with outdated copy‑paste snippets.
• After big architecture changes: Introducing a new load balancer, CDN, WAF or reverse proxy layer should always trigger a TLS/HTTPS review end‑to‑end.

If you are not sure where to start, our team at dchost.com can help you interpret TLS scanner results and translate them into practical configuration changes on your shared hosting, VPS, dedicated server or colocation environment.

Conclusion: Turn TLS Updates into a Routine, Not a Crisis

SSL/TLS protocol updates will never stop. New attacks will be discovered, browsers will tighten requirements, and standards bodies will keep refining what is acceptable. The good news is that you do not need to redesign your entire infrastructure every time. You just need a clear baseline and a simple review cycle.

For most organizations today, that baseline is straightforward: TLS 1.2 and 1.3 only, ECDHE + AEAD ciphers, PFS, OCSP stapling, HSTS, HTTP/2 and, where appropriate, HTTP/3. On top of that, you add certificate automation, regular expiry monitoring and occasional configuration checks with external tools.

At dchost.com, we bake these practices into our shared hosting clusters, VPS templates, dedicated server setups and colocation designs, so that you start from a hardened position instead of from scratch. If you are planning a migration, consolidating multiple sites, or simply suspect your TLS stack is outdated, our team can help you review your current configuration and plan a safe, step‑by‑step upgrade.

If you want your HTTPS stack to be both secure and fast—without turning every audit into a fire drill—reach out to us and let’s design the right TLS strategy for your domains, applications and customers.