ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 is the recommended TLS 1.2 cipher suite. ECDHE provides forward secrecy, RSA authenticates the server certificate, and AES-128-GCM provides authenticated encryption. This is the primary cipher suite for TLS 1.2 – if your server supports TLS 1.3, clients will prefer TLS 1.3 and these suites are used only for TLS 1.2 connections.
Key Exchange
ECDHE
Authentication
RSA
Encryption
AES-128-GCM
MAC / Integrity
SHA-256 (AEAD – integrated)
Details
This is the gold-standard TLS 1.2 cipher suite. ECDHE (Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman Ephemeral) generates a new key pair for each session, ensuring forward secrecy – past sessions cannot be decrypted even if the server's RSA private key is later compromised. AES-128-GCM is an AEAD cipher that combines encryption and integrity checking. SHA-256 is used in the HKDF key derivation.