The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) sets strict requirements for TLS configurations. These guidelines are not optional. They dictate how banks and financial services must secure data in transit, and they define what auditors look for. Failing to comply means failing security tests, risking penalties, and weakening your defense against attacks.
A FFIEC-compliant TLS configuration starts with the protocol version. Only TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.3 are considered secure. Disable SSL, TLS 1.0, and TLS 1.1 entirely. Next is cipher suite selection. The FFIEC specifies that cipher suites must use strong key exchange mechanisms such as ECDHE, robust encryption like AES-256-GCM, and secure hashing like SHA-256 or stronger. Weak ciphers are not acceptable — they invite downgrade attacks and breaches.
Certificate management is another core requirement. Use certificates signed by trusted certificate authorities. Keep key lengths at 2048 bits or higher for RSA or equivalent strength for elliptic curves. Enforce short certificate lifetimes to reduce exposure if compromised. Configure servers to use OCSP stapling to speed up and strengthen revocation checks.