SSL/TLS Protocol Updates: What’s New and What You Must Change Now

SSL/TLS is not a one‑time setup you forget after the first HTTPS padlock appears. Browser vendors, payment schemes, auditors and security researchers keep tightening the rules, deprecating old protocol versions and ciphers and pushing new features like TLS 1.3, modern key exchange and stricter certificate lifecycles. If your configuration still looks like that snippet you copy‑pasted years ago, you are almost certainly carrying legacy baggage that hurts both security and performance. In this article, we will walk through the most important SSL/TLS protocol updates of the last few years, explain what they really mean for real‑world servers, and give you a clear, prioritised checklist you can apply on shared hosting, VPS, dedicated or colocated servers. As the team behind dchost.com’s hosting platform, we also share how we think about these changes internally, so you can align your own stack with a modern, forward‑compatible HTTPS policy instead of reacting only when a scanner or auditor complains.

The Current State of SSL/TLS: What’s Deprecated and What’s Modern

Before touching config files, you need a mental model of which protocol versions are considered dead, acceptable or recommended. Over the last decade, the line has moved several times.

Deprecated and unsafe protocol versions

These versions should be completely disabled on any public‑facing web, mail or API endpoint:

• SSL 2.0 and SSL 3.0: Broken for years, vulnerable to multiple attacks (POODLE, etc.). Browsers and libraries have removed support.
• TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1: Formally deprecated by the IETF and dropped by major browsers. PCI‑DSS has long required their removal for card‑handling systems.

If any scanner still shows TLS 1.0 or 1.1 enabled, that is no longer a “compatibility” decision; it is a liability. On modern stacks, there is no practical reason to keep them.

The real baseline: TLS 1.2

TLS 1.2 remains today’s baseline for compatibility. Legacy operating systems and libraries that cannot speak TLS 1.2 are effectively out of support in the broader ecosystem as well. When we design configurations for dchost.com shared hosting or managed VPS customers, we treat TLS 1.2 as the minimum, not the ideal.

Within TLS 1.2, however, the cipher choices matter enormously. You can operate TLS 1.2 in a very weak way (e.g. RSA key exchange, CBC ciphers) or in a modern way (ECDHE + AES‑GCM/CHACHA20‑POLY1305). We will come back to this when we discuss cipher suites.

The modern target: TLS 1.3

TLS 1.3 is now widely supported by browsers, OpenSSL, modern Linux distributions and most serious hosting environments. It simplifies the protocol, removes a lot of historical baggage and gives faster, safer handshakes by design. For many of our own deployments, we already see more than half of HTTPS traffic negotiating TLS 1.3 when it is enabled correctly.

If you want a deeper, implementation‑level view of TLS 1.3 on Nginx and Apache, we recommend our detailed playbook on TLS 1.3, OCSP stapling and HSTS preload on Nginx/Apache.

What Changed Inside TLS: Handshakes, Ciphers and Forward Secrecy

Protocol version numbers are just the surface. Underneath, the last few years brought three big shifts: how keys are negotiated, which ciphers are allowed and how much information leaks to attackers.

From RSA key exchange to ephemeral key exchange

Older TLS configurations often used RSA key exchange, where the session key is encrypted directly with the server’s long‑term RSA key. This is easy to configure but has a major weakness: if someone records your traffic today and later obtains your private key (for example via a breach), they can decrypt all past sessions.

Modern TLS configurations use ephemeral Diffie–Hellman key exchange:

• DHE (finite field Diffie–Hellman)
• ECDHE (elliptic‑curve Diffie–Hellman)

These provide Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS), meaning that even if your long‑term key is compromised tomorrow, past sessions remain safe. TLS 1.3 mandates forward‑secret key exchange; in TLS 1.2, you must explicitly prefer ECDHE suites.

From CBC and RC4 to AEAD ciphers

Legacy TLS stacks used CBC‑mode ciphers (AES‑CBC, 3DES) and sometimes RC4. Over time, researchers showed practical weaknesses, and many CBC constructions turned out fragile in real‑world implementations.

Modern TLS deployments should use AEAD (Authenticated Encryption with Associated Data) ciphers:

• AES‑GCM (e.g. TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256)
• CHACHA20‑POLY1305 (fast on low‑power and mobile devices)

TLS 1.3 simplifies this further by offering only a small, well‑reviewed set of AEAD cipher suites. If your TLS 1.2 configuration still advertises 3DES, RC4 or plain AES‑CBC, that is an immediate clean‑up target.

Faster handshakes and fewer round trips

A classic criticism of HTTPS used to be additional latency from the TLS handshake. Over the years, protocol updates have largely eliminated this concern:

• Session resumption and tickets reduce the cost of repeat connections.
• TLS 1.3 reduces the number of round trips for a fresh handshake and allows 0‑RTT data in specific, well‑considered use cases.
• Combined with HTTP/2 and HTTP/3, a single encrypted connection can serve many in‑flight requests efficiently.

On modern hardware, the CPU cost of a well‑tuned TLS 1.2/1.3 stack is rarely the bottleneck. Misconfigured PHP, database queries or missing caching nearly always dominate before TLS does. We explain that interaction in more detail in our guide on how HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 affect SEO and Core Web Vitals when choosing hosting.

What You Should Disable Today: Legacy Protocols and Weak Ciphers

The easiest wins in any SSL/TLS modernisation are negative steps: deciding what to deliberately remove.

Disable SSLv2, SSLv3, TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 completely

On any web server (Nginx, Apache, LiteSpeed), mail server (Postfix, Exim, Dovecot) or reverse proxy, your protocol list should look roughly like this:

• Enabled: TLSv1.2, TLSv1.3
• Disabled: SSLv2, SSLv3, TLSv1.0, TLSv1.1

If you are worried about very old clients on an internal or private system, isolate those behind a separate endpoint rather than weakening your main public configuration. On dchost.com infrastructure, we keep public‑facing endpoints at TLS 1.2+ and consider any exception a short‑term migration bridge with an explicit removal date.

Remove broken and obsolete ciphers

Even with TLS 1.2, you can accidentally offer fragile ciphers. Review and remove:

• RC4 (e.g. containing RC4 in the name)
• 3DES (sometimes listed as DES-CBC3-SHA)
• Export‑grade ciphers (often marked EXP)
• NULL or anonymous suites (no encryption or no authentication)

Prefer a small, ordered list of strong ciphers focusing on:

• ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 or ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256
• ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305 or ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305

Browsers will negotiate the best common cipher. By constraining the menu to good options, you prevent accidental downgrades to weak ones.

Phase out RSA‑only deployments where possible

There is nothing inherently broken about RSA certificates, but from both performance and cryptographic perspectives, ECDSA certificates are increasingly attractive. Modern servers can even present dual ECDSA + RSA certificates, letting clients pick the best option.

If you are still using only an RSA 2048 certificate and are refreshing your certificates anyway, consider switching to ECDSA or a dual‑stack approach. We explore this in detail in our article on serving dual ECDSA + RSA certificates on Nginx and Apache.

Practical Server‑Side Checklist for SSL/TLS Protocol Updates

Once you know your target protocol and cipher policy, the next step is turning that into concrete server configuration. The details differ slightly between Nginx, Apache and other servers, but the checklist is largely the same.

1. Update your TLS libraries and web server

Many “mystery” TLS issues come from outdated OpenSSL or an old web server that simply does not know about TLS 1.3 or modern ciphers. On a VPS or dedicated server, make sure you:

• Run a supported Linux distribution (recent LTS or equivalent).
• Keep OpenSSL and the web server (Nginx, Apache, LiteSpeed) up to date via the package manager.
• Avoid custom, hand‑compiled crypto libraries unless you really know why you need them.

On shared hosting, your provider controls this layer. At dchost.com we regularly review our SSL/TLS stack as part of our wider process for staying ahead of SSL/TLS security updates on our servers.

2. Set protocol versions explicitly

Do not rely on defaults. Explicitly declare allowed protocol versions:

• Nginx example: ssl_protocols TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3;
• Apache example: SSLProtocol TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3

This avoids surprises when package upgrades change default behaviour.

3. Define a modern cipher suite

On TLS 1.3, ciphers are configured separately from TLS 1.2 in most servers. A typical pattern on Nginx looks like:

• ssl_ciphers for TLS 1.2 suites (only AEAD + ECDHE).
• ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on; to control negotiation order.
• Additional ssl_conf_command or equivalent for TLS 1.3, depending on your OpenSSL version.

The exact strings change over time as best practices evolve, so rather than copy‑pasting a static list from an old blog post, review current guidance regularly or use vetted generator tools and adapt them to your environment.

4. Enable OCSP stapling and proper chains

Modern TLS deployments expect the server to present a correct certificate chain and, ideally, staple OCSP responses:

• Make sure you serve the intermediate certificates required by your CA, not just the leaf.
• Enable OCSP stapling to reduce client lookups and speed up validation.

Incorrect chains cause a surprising number of “but it works on my browser” issues, especially on older mobile devices. When we help customers troubleshoot, mis‑chained certificates are one of the most common findings.

5. Configure HSTS and other security headers carefully

Once your TLS configuration is stable, you can harden clients’ behaviour with:

• HSTS (Strict-Transport-Security): Tells browsers to always use HTTPS for your domain.
• Additional headers like Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options and Referrer-Policy.

HSTS in particular is powerful: once a browser sees it, users cannot click through TLS warnings for your domain. That is great when your TLS setup is robust and monitored; dangerous if your certificates expire unnoticed. Our HTTP security headers guide for HSTS, CSP and others walks through safe rollout strategies, including preload lists and subdomain considerations.

6. Automate certificate issuance and renewal

Modern TLS is inseparable from automation. Certificate lifetimes keep shrinking, and manual renewals quickly become operationally risky. At a minimum, you should:

• Use ACME‑based automation (Let’s Encrypt or other ACME‑aware CAs) wherever appropriate.
• Store certificates and keys in well‑defined paths with correct permissions.
• Reload the web server automatically after successful renewal.

If you manage many domains or multi‑tenant platforms, advanced patterns like DNS‑01 validation, wildcard certificates and multi‑CA fallbacks become important. We describe these patterns in our article on innovations in SSL certificate automation for modern hosting.

Testing and Monitoring Your SSL/TLS Configuration

Modernising your configuration once is not enough; you also need to test and keep an eye on it over time.

Use online scanners and command‑line tools

Start by verifying what the outside world actually sees:

• Public SSL scanners that show protocol support, cipher suites, certificate chains and HSTS status.
• Command‑line tools like openssl s_client or testssl.sh to probe specific details from various angles.

We routinely use these during capacity planning or security reviews to confirm that a change has landed correctly on all frontends and load balancers, not just on a single test node.

Monitor certificate expiry across all domains

Protocols and ciphers are relatively static once set. Certificates, however, expire frequently. As certificate lifetimes continue to shorten, expiry monitoring is non‑negotiable. For real‑world operations you should:

• Maintain an inventory of all domains and hostnames that require TLS.
• Set up centralised expiry checks and alerts with sufficient lead time.
• Include API subdomains, admin panels and secondary brands that are easy to forget.

If you manage dozens or hundreds of domains, doing this by hand becomes fragile. We recommend automating this process as described in our guide on monitoring SSL certificate expiry across many domains.

Regularly reassess protocol and cipher policies

The bar for “modern” TLS keeps moving. Attacks discovered today may turn a currently acceptable cipher into a legacy liability in a few years. Build a habit of:

• Re‑running TLS scans after major browser or OpenSSL releases.
• Reviewing your configuration against up‑to‑date hardening guides once or twice a year.
• Documenting when and why you deviate from strict recommendations (for example, to support a critical but old internal system).

This is exactly the process we follow at dchost.com when we schedule TLS and cipher reviews alongside OS and web server upgrades.

Planning SSL/TLS Upgrades on Shared Hosting, VPS and Dedicated Servers

The right way to apply these protocol updates depends on how much control you have over the stack.

On shared hosting plans

On shared hosting, the provider controls the web server version, OpenSSL and often the global TLS configuration. Your main levers are:

• Choosing modern SSL options in the panel (AutoSSL, Let’s Encrypt, latest protocol support where exposed).
• Enabling HSTS and security headers at the application or .htaccess level.
• Fixing mixed content issues after enabling HTTPS so that browsers can enforce stricter policies safely.

We covered that last aspect in detail in our article on fixing mixed content and insecure HTTP requests after enabling SSL.

On VPS and dedicated servers

On a VPS or dedicated server, you own the TLS stack end‑to‑end. That brings both power and responsibility. A safe upgrade plan usually looks like this:

1. Stage changes in a test or staging environment that mirrors production as closely as possible.
2. Enable TLS 1.3 while keeping TLS 1.2, then verify with scanners and user testing.
3. Tighten cipher suites by removing obsolete options and focusing on ECDHE + AEAD.
4. Introduce HSTS with a modest max‑age, then increase after a few weeks of stability.
5. Automate certificate renewal and verify that reloads are smooth and do not cause downtime.

If you host multiple sites, consider isolating them logically (separate virtual hosts, separate PHP‑FPM pools, even separate VPSs where justified) so that protocol experiments for one project do not risk others. Our broader article on SSL/TLS protocol updates and roadmap for modern HTTPS dives deeper into change management strategies across environments.

On colocated hardware

If you colocate your own servers in a data center, you have the same software‑level responsibilities as on a dedicated server, plus some physical considerations:

• Ensure hardware crypto acceleration (AES‑NI, modern CPUs) is available and enabled.
• Design redundant frontends or load balancers so you can rotate TLS configs and certificates without risking downtime.
• Coordinate TLS upgrades with other infrastructure changes (HTTP/2/3 enablement, WAF policies, DDoS protection layers).

dchost.com offers colocation precisely for teams that want full control over their TLS and network stack while relying on a professionally managed data center environment.

Bringing Your TLS Stack Up to Date with dchost.com

Modern SSL/TLS is not about chasing every new acronym; it is about quietly maintaining a clean, well‑documented baseline: TLS 1.2 and 1.3 only, forward‑secret key exchange, AEAD ciphers, automated certificates and safety nets like OCSP stapling and HSTS. When you keep those pillars in place, protocol updates turn from last‑minute emergencies into routine maintenance tasks.

As the team behind dchost.com, we apply the same principles across our shared hosting, VPS, dedicated server and colocation platforms. We regularly review our TLS libraries and cipher policies, validate configurations with real scanners, and invest heavily in automation so our customers benefit from modern HTTPS without constantly re‑learning the details. If you are planning a migration, an audit or simply want to align your sites with current best practices, you can lean on this checklist and our other deep‑dive articles to design a realistic roadmap instead of a risky big‑bang change.

If you need an environment where you control the application while we handle the underlying infrastructure and its SSL/TLS evolution, explore our VPS, dedicated and colocation options. And when you are ready to refine the last details, our guides on TLS 1.3, certificate automation and HTTP security headers are there to help you push your HTTPS posture from “works” to genuinely modern and resilient.