When the pandemic hit, 300 million daily meeting participants worldwide turned to Zoom for remote work, virtual meetings, virtual events, and webinars.

However, as we all know, with popularity comes attention, and Zoom's security vulnerabilities were soon exposed.

One of the main issues was that Zoom initially used HTTP instead of HTTPS for communication, making it easy for hackers to intercept sensitive information. 

This was a big wake-up call for the importance of secure communication protocols like HTTPS and end-to-end encryption in protecting our digital connections and sensitive information.

In this blog post, we'll explore the differences between HTTP and HTTPS in more detail. If you're curious about internet safety and how it affects your online experience, read on!

HTTP vs. HTTPS: What is the Difference?

In simple terms, HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is the older, more basic protocol that has been used for decades to send data between web servers and browsers. It's been a reliable workhorse for the internet, but it has some weaknesses that have become more apparent in recent years.

HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure), on the other hand, is the newer, more secure protocol that has been developed to address some of these weaknesses. It's essentially a souped-up version of HTTP that uses encryption to protect the data that's being transmitted.

HTTP and HTTPS may look similar, but there are some important differences between the two. Here are the main ones:

1. Security

The most significant difference between HTTP and HTTPS is security. When you visit a website that uses HTTP, any data that you send or receive is sent in plain text. This means that anyone who intercepts your data can read it. With HTTPS, on the other hand, all data is encrypted, so it's much harder for someone to intercept and read your data.

2. Trust

HTTPS is also associated with trust. When you visit a website that uses HTTPS, your browser will show a padlock icon in the address bar, indicating that the site is secure. This gives users more confidence that they're on a legitimate website and that their data is safe.

3. SEO

HTTPS is also important for SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Google has stated that it uses HTTPS as a ranking signal, meaning that sites that use HTTPS are more likely to rank higher in search results. So if you're a website owner looking to improve your search engine rankings, switching to HTTPS is a good idea.

4. Performance

HTTPS can also improve website performance. Because encrypted data is harder to intercept, it can reduce the risk of man-in-the-middle attacks and other security issues that can slow down a website. Additionally, many modern browsers are designed to prioritize HTTPS traffic, which can result in faster load times.

What is HTTP?

HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is the protocol that has been used for decades to transmit data between web servers and web browsers. It's a fundamental part of the internet, and without it, the web as we know it today wouldn't exist.

How HTTP Works?

When you type a URL into your web browser, your browser sends a HTTP request to the web server hosting the website you're trying to access. The server then sends a HTTP response back to your browser, which contains the information needed to display the webpage.

What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of HTTP?

One of the biggest strengths of HTTP is its simplicity. Because it's a text-based protocol, it's easy for humans to read and understand. This simplicity has also made it easy to develop new applications and services that rely on HTTP as their underlying protocol.

However, there are also some weaknesses with HTTP that have become more apparent in recent years. One of the biggest issues is security. Because HTTP sends data in plain text, it's relatively easy for someone to intercept and read that data. This can be a major problem, especially for websites that transmit sensitive information like credit card numbers or personal information.

Another issue with HTTP is that it's vulnerable to a variety of attacks. For example, a man-in-the-middle attack can intercept and modify data being sent between the browser and the server, which can be used to steal data or inject malicious code into a webpage.

What is a HTTP Request?

A HTTP request is a message sent by a web browser to a web server in order to retrieve information from it. When you type a URL into your browser, you're actually sending a HTTP request to the server hosting the website. This request contains information about the type of request being made (such as a GET request to retrieve a webpage), the version of HTTP being used, and other details about the communication.

HTTP requests are made up of two parts: 

• The request header, which contains metadata about the request;
• The request body, which contains any data that needs to be sent with the request.

For example, if you're submitting a form on a website, the data you enter in the form will be sent in the request body.

The request header includes information about the type of request being made (such as a GET request to retrieve a webpage), the version of HTTP being used, and other details about the communication. It also includes information about the user agent and what is the software being used to send the request (such as a web browser).

The request body can contain any data that needs to be sent with the request. For example, if you're submitting a form on a website, the data you enter in the form would be sent in the request body. This data can be in a variety of formats, such as plain text, JSON, or XML.

Here's an example of a typical HTTP request:

GET /example HTTP/1.1

Host: www.example.com

User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:88.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/88.0

Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,image/webp,*/*;q=0.8

Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.5

Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, br

Connection: keep-alive

In this example, the request is a GET request to retrieve a webpage from www.example.com. The request header includes information about the version of HTTP being used (HTTP/1.1), the user agent (Mozilla Firefox), and the accepted content types (text/html, etc.). The request body is empty in this case because no data needs to be sent with the request.

Understanding the structure of HTTP requests is important for web developers and designers because it can help them optimize website performance, improve security, and troubleshoot issues. By analyzing the contents of HTTP requests, they can identify potential problems and find ways to improve the user experience.

What is an HTTP Response?

A HTTP response is the message sent by a web server back to a web browser in response to a HTTP request. This message contains the information needed to display the webpage in the browser.

The response is made up of two parts: 

• The response header, which contains information about the response, such as the status code (which indicates whether the request was successful or not) and any other metadata about the response;
• The response body, which contains the actual data that needs to be displayed in the browser, such as the HTML code for the webpage.

HTTP responses also contain other types of information that can be useful for web developers and designers. For example, they may include information about the size of the response, the content type (such as text or images), and any caching information that can be used to optimize the loading speed of the webpage.

Here's an example of a typical HTTP response:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK

Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8

Content-Length: 1234

Connection: keep-alive

Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Welcome to the Example Page

This is an example page.

In this example, the response is a 200 OK response, which means the request was successful. The response header includes information about the content type (text/html), the length of the response body (1234 bytes), and the date the response was sent. The response body contains the HTML code for the webpage that needs to be displayed in the browser.

What is HTTPS?

HTTPS stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure, and it is a more secure version of HTTP. HTTPS uses encryption to protect the data being sent between a web browser and a web server, making it much more difficult for hackers to intercept and steal sensitive information.

How HTTPS Works?

When you visit a website using HTTPS, your web browser and the website's server use a special encryption protocol called SSL/TLS to establish a secure connection. This means that any data being sent between your browser and the server is encrypted and cannot be read by anyone who may be trying to intercept it.

What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of HTTPS?

One of the main benefits of using HTTPS is that it helps protect sensitive information, such as login credentials, credit card information, and personal data. When you enter this type of information into a website that is using HTTPS, it is encrypted and sent securely to the server, making it much more difficult for hackers to steal.

Another benefit of HTTPS is that it helps prevent man-in-the-middle attacks, where a hacker tries to intercept and modify the data being sent between a browser and a server. With HTTPS, the encrypted connection helps ensure that the data being sent is exactly what the user intended and has not been modified in transit.

You can tell if a website is using HTTPS by looking for the padlock icon in your web browser's address bar. If the padlock is closed, the website is using HTTPS and your connection is secure. If the padlock is open or there is no padlock at all, the website is not using HTTPS and your connection may be vulnerable to interception.

In HTTPS, How does TLS/SSL Encrypt HTTP Requests and Responses?

When a user makes a request to a website, the server sends a certificate containing a public key, which is verified by the user's browser. The browser and server establish a secure connection using a process called the TLS handshake, during which they agree on a shared secret key to be used for encrypting and decrypting data.

All data exchanged between the browser and server is encrypted using this key, making it difficult for hackers to intercept and read the data. TLS/SSL also provides authentication and integrity checking to ensure that the data being sent has not been tampered with or modified in transit.

Conclusion

Given the points made above, HTTPS keeps your website and users' data safe from cyber-attacks by encrypting traffic and providing authenticity. Consider upgrading to HTTPS for added security.

BIO

Parichehr Parsi is an enthusiastic content creator. She currently writes for Nifty, which is a task management service provider. Being a travel addict and workaholic shows that she is quite well-balanced in living her life. She also loves music, reading, writing, and knitting.