Patent ID: 8478986

Claim:
A method of establishing a split-terminated secure communication connection between a client computing device and a server computing device, the method comprising: at a client-side intermediary interposed in a communication path between the client and a network coupling the client to the server; receiving from a server-side intermediary a certificate issued in a name of the server; intercepting a request from the client for a secure communication connection with the server; forwarding to the server-side intermediary a client-key exchange message received from the client; and establishing a secure client-side communication session between the client and the client-side intermediary; and at the server-side intermediary, interposed between the network and the server: receiving the forwarded client-key-exchange message; calculating the master secret from a client secret extracted from the client-key exchange message; transmitting the master secret to the client-side intermediary; and establishing a secure server-side communication session with the server; wherein the split-terminated secure communication connection comprises the secure client-side communication session, the secure server-side communication session and a communication connection between the client-side intermediary and the server-side intermediary; and wherein the split-terminated secure communication connection is established with no more than three communications exchanged across the network, the three communications including: the certificate transmitted from the server-side intermediary to the client-side intermediary; the client-key exchange message transmitted from the client-side intermediary to the server-side intermediary; and the master secret transmitted from the server-side intermediary to the client-side intermediary.