A combination of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) with SSL/TLS protocol to provide encrypted communication and secure identification of a network web server.
HTTPS is a URI scheme that is, aside from the scheme token, syntactically identical to the HTTP scheme used for normal HTTP connections, but which signals the browser to use an added encryption layer of SSL/TLS to protect the traffic. SSL is especially suited for HTTP since it can provide some protection even if only one side of the communication is authenticated. This is the case with HTTP transactions over the Internet, where typically only the server is authenticated (by the client examining the server's certificate).
The main idea of HTTPS is to create a secure channel over an insecure network. This ensures reasonable protection from eavesdroppers and man-in-the-middle attacks, provided that adequate cipher suites are used and that the server certificate is verified and trusted.
HTTPS connections are often used for payment transactions on the World Wide Web and for sensitive transactions in corporate information systems.
