IWSVA can use Transport Layer Security (TLS) or Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to help ensure secure communication between the web console and the server.

TLS and its predecessor, SSL, are cryptographic protocols. These protocols help to secure communication between a web console and a server by using long-term, asymmetric public keys to authenticate each side. Once authenticated, these protocols allow the sides to create short-term, symmetric secret keys used to encrypt communication between the sides during the session. It is not possible to use the public keys to reverse-engineer the secret keys.

To perform authentication, TLS and SSL protocols use X.509 certificates and asymmetric cryptography. Supporting X.509 certificates requires a certificate authority (CA) and public key infrastructure to do the following: