The HTTPS Protocol Usage in the Public Web Sites of Bulgarian Banks

The purpose of this publication is to summarize, systemize and analyze the collected data in the course of a survey conducted in the autumn of 2017 on the use of the HTTPS protocol in the public sites of banks in Bulgaria. The scope of the survey is limited to the public site of the particular bank, which explores the sites of all 22 Bulgarian banks licensed by the BNB at the time of the survey. When using text protocols (such as HTTP / 0.9 / 1.0 / 1.1) after listening to traffic, exchanged queries and responses can easily be read, even without the use of complex technical means. In many cases, it is necessary to exchange confidential data (passwords, bank card payment numbers, personal information, etc.) and HTTPS protocol (also known as "HTTP Secure", "Secure HTTP", "HTTP over SSL, HTTP over TLS, etc.). The use of a secure connection increases the load on the client and the server in terms of busy CPU time and the amount of RAM, but in recent years this is not considered a serious argument given the great benefits of link security. The trend over the past years has made HTTPS more and more used as the default protocol when setting hyperlinks in web pages and to be used by default by web applications.