SSL/TLS & Transport
medium Severity
Free Check
Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS)
Ensures TLS handshakes negotiate ECDHE or DHE key exchanges so compromised private keys cannot decrypt recorded past traffic.
Why It Matters
Without forward secrecy, an attacker who records encrypted traffic today and steals the private key years later can decrypt all historical communications.
How We Check This
We verify that negotiated cipher suites use ECDHE or DHE key exchange mechanisms.
How to Fix & Implement
Copy-paste configuration blocks tailored for your web server or edge proxy.
nginx snippet
ssl_ciphers ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256;
Frequently Asked Questions
Is RSA key exchange forward secret?
No. Static RSA key exchange does not provide forward secrecy, which is why it was removed in TLS 1.3.