---

title: Cipher suite

slug: Glossary/Cipher_suite

page-type: glossary-definition

---

{{GlossarySidebar}}

**Cipher suite** is a combination of a key exchange algorithm, authentication method, bulk encryption {{Glossary("cipher")}}, and message authentication code.

In a crypto system like {{Glossary("TLS")}}, the client and server must agree on a cipher suite before they can begin communicating securely. A typical cipher suite looks like ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256 or ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256, indicating:

- ECDHE (elliptic curve Diffie-Hellman ephemeral) for key exchange

- RSA for authentication

- AES-128 as the cipher, with Galois/Counter Mode (GCM) as the block cipher mode of operation

- SHA-256 as the hash-based message authentication code (HMAC)

## See also

- [Mozilla recommended cipher suite choices for TLS](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Server_Side_TLS)