Hack the Hackers 2025 – Master the Certified Ethical Hacker Challenge!

The correct answer is the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol, which is recognized as the successor to the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol. TLS was developed to provide more robust security measures compared to its predecessor, addressing vulnerabilities and enhancing encryption standards. This ensures secure communication over internet protocols by establishing an encrypted channel between clients and servers.

TLS has undergone several updates to improve its security features and performance, making it the current standard for secure communications on the web. It also supports more advanced algorithms for encryption, authentication, and message integrity than SSL, which helps protect against various types of cyber threats such as eavesdropping, tampering, and forgery.

In contrast, the other protocols mentioned do not serve as successors to SSL: SSH (Secure Shell) is primarily used for secure access to remote computers, PPTP (Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol) is related to VPN technology but is not a direct successor to SSL, and IPsec (Internet Protocol Security) is mainly focused on securing internet protocol communications at the network layer. Thus, TLS is the appropriate answer as it directly evolves from the technology originally established by SSL for securing web traffic.