Some connections have no forward secrecy

MediumConfirmedQuick wintls.protocols.no-forward-secrecy

What this check looks for

For some connections the server uses a method where one leak of its private key would expose every past conversation that anyone recorded.

Why it matters

Forward secrecy is what makes a future key compromise a limited event rather than a retroactive one. Without it, traffic captured today can be decrypted years later if the key is ever obtained.

When the check passes, your report says: “Every connection we made has forward secrecy”.

What it costs your score

When this check fails it removes 15 points from your TLS score, before the status, confidence and repeat multipliers are applied. TLS carries a weight of 15 in the overall score.

It shares the tls.protocols family ceiling of 40 points: however many findings that family produces, together they cannot remove more than that from TLS. One underlying problem showing up in several places is still one problem.

Severity: medium
Default confidence: confirmed
Status when triggered: fail
Deduction: 15 points
Family cap: tls.protocols · 40
Category: TLS
Module: Tls protocols
Fix owned by: user
In the ruleset since: 2026.09

How the whole score is calculated

How to fix it

Restrict the cipher list to ECDHE and DHE suites.

Without forward secrecy, one key compromise decrypts every recorded session retroactively.

Remove the static-RSA suites from the cipher list.
Keep server cipher preference off and let the client choose from an already-safe list.
Enabling TLS 1.3 removes the problem for connections that use it.

How to confirm it worked

openssl s_client -connect ‹host›:443 -servername ‹host› </dev/null 2>/dev/null | grep 'Server Temp Key' — expect an ECDH or DH line

A named slot like ‹domain› — and the braces left in the configuration below — is filled in with your own values when this rule appears on a report.

Remediation by platform

nginx

ssl_protocols TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3;
ssl_prefer_server_ciphers off;
ssl_ciphers ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384;

Apache

SSLProtocol             -all +TLSv1.2 +TLSv1.3
SSLHonorCipherOrder     off
SSLCipherSuite          ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305

Caddy

‹host› {
	tls {
		protocols tls1.2 tls1.3
	}
}

Cloudflare

SSL/TLS → Edge Certificates → Minimum TLS Version → TLS 1.2.

Put this in the http block so it applies to every server block; a per-server ssl_protocols directive silently overrides it for that server only.
Set it in the main configuration, not in .htaccess — SSLProtocol is a server-context directive and .htaccess cannot change it.
Caddy already defaults to TLS 1.2 and 1.3; an explicit block is only needed to pin them.
This setting governs the connection between visitors and Cloudflare's edge only. It does not change what the origin server negotiates, and an origin that is reachable directly — by IP, or through any DNS record that is not proxied — still accepts what it accepted before. This scan measured the origin, so apply the server-side configuration as well.

Technical detail

These suites offered by ‹host› use static key exchange: ‹ciphers›. In RSA key exchange the client encrypts the premaster secret to the server's long-term public key, so that key decrypts every session it ever protected. ECDHE and DHE derive a per-session secret that is discarded afterwards. TLS 1.3 removed static key exchange entirely, so this only arises on TLS 1.2 and below.