TLS 1.3 Handshake Step by Step

TLS (Transport Layer Security) protects data in transit over the internet. Every HTTPS connection uses TLS. TLS 1.3, standardized in RFC 8446 (2018), eliminated legacy algorithms and reduced handshake round trips from 2 to 1.

The client sends: TLS version (1.3), a random 32-byte nonce, a list of supported cipher suites (e.g., TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384), and key share extensions containing ECDH public keys for supported groups (X25519, P-256).