SSL / TLS (Secure Sockets Layer / Transport Layer Security) authenticates endpoints and encrypts channels to provide session privacy and security on the Internet. The standard operates at a higher level in the OSI stack than IPSec, and supports peer negotiation for algorithm selection, public key based exchange of secret session keys and X.509 certificates. SSL / TLS is the world's most widely-implemented security protocol, and is essential for electronic commerce. TLS is increasingly used for proxies, redirect servers and registrars to protect SIP signaling in VoIP environments.
Unfortunately, most SSL/TLS packages are designed for PC's, not embedded devices. That means that they can be somewhat unwieldy in memory-constrained device environments... and the performance of typical commercial or open-source SSL offerings can be pretty disappointing, and offers minimal hacker protection, if any. On a PC, "big and slow" is no big deal. On a small connected device, though, open-source SSL packages simply won't fit in the memory allocated — or they'll burn through battery power so fast that it won't make any difference if they had. But what OpenSSL alternatives are out there?
We’d like to offer up Mocana’s NanoSSL™ as your best OpenSSL alternative. It’s part of the Mocana Device Security Framework, and NanoSSL is an OpenSSL alternative that is faster, smaller, better documented and has a much lower total cost of ownership.
Compare OpenSSL alternatives below, and see how Mocana’s optimized SSL, NanoSSL, measures up.
