CloudFlare said it has engineered a novel way to handle sensitive encryption keys that allows organizations such as financial institutions to still use its caching service to fend off cyberattacks.The breakthrough, called “Keyless SSL,” is a new method for handling SSL (Secure Socket Layer) keys, which are used to encrypt content between a client and a service and are a fundamental defense to prevent intercepted data from being read by an attacker.The company’s popular services protect websites from distributed denial-of-service and other attacks by using a network of global data centers to detect and filter attack traffic and keep websites online through extensive caching.Websites using SSL could be accommodated by CloudFlare, but those operators had to turn over their SSL encryption keys. That’s risky, since the safety of the data is dependent on how well a third-party provider protects those keys. If a bank’s SSL key is lost, for example, the incident is so serious that it must be reported to the Federal Reserve, wrote Matthew Prince, CloudFlare’s CEO, in a blog post on Thursday.A stolen SSL key would allow attackers to decrypt traffic they’ve intercepted or set up a fake website that appears to be legitimate. According to a technical writeup, Keyless SSL works like this: a person’s Web browser connects to the closest CloudFlare server and sends a bit of data, called a secret, that has been encrypted with a bank’s public SSL key.CloudFlare’s server authenticates itself to a key server and sends its own encrypted secret, which the key server decrypts and sends it back over an encrypted tunnel. The shared secret is then used to connect the Web browser and the bank’s online service via CloudFlare.One of the company’s edge nodes, or session server, does have to decrypt, inspect and re-encrypt the traffic before it goes back to the bank’s site, CloudFlare said.Keyless SSL has been audited by iSEC Partners and Matasano Security, according to CloudFlare. The company will offer Keyless SSL initially for customers on its enterprise plan.Send news tips and comments to jeremy_kirk@idg.com. Follow me on Twitter: @jeremy_kirk Related content news Okta launches Cybersecurity Workforce Development Initiative New philanthropic and educational grants aim to advance inclusive pathways into cybersecurity and technology careers. By Michael Hill Oct 04, 2023 3 mins IT Skills Careers Security news New critical AI vulnerabilities in TorchServe put thousands of AI models at risk The vulnerabilities can completely compromise the AI infrastructure of the world’s biggest businesses, Oligo Security said. By Shweta Sharma Oct 04, 2023 4 mins Vulnerabilities news ChatGPT “not a reliable” tool for detecting vulnerabilities in developed code NCC Group report claims machine learning models show strong promise in detecting novel zero-day attacks. By Michael Hill Oct 04, 2023 3 mins DevSecOps Generative AI Vulnerabilities news Google Chrome zero-day jumps onto CISA's known vulnerability list A serious security flaw in Google Chrome, which was discovered under active exploitation in the wild, is a new addition to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency’s Known Exploited vulnerabilities catalog. By Jon Gold Oct 03, 2023 3 mins Zero-day vulnerability Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe