SSL 2.0 is enabled

CriticalConfirmedtls.protocols.sslv2-enabled

What this check looks for

The server still accepts a protocol from 1995 that is completely broken. Its presence weakens the modern connections too.

Why it matters

DROWN showed that merely leaving SSL 2.0 enabled anywhere on a host lets an attacker decrypt TLS traffic on that host — the modern connection is only as safe as the worst protocol the key is shared with.

When the check passes, your report says: “The server refuses SSL 2.0”.

What it costs your score

When this check fails it removes 60 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: critical
Default confidence: confirmed
Status when triggered: fail
Deduction: 60 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

Disable SSL 2.0 on every service that shares this key, not only on port 443.

DROWN attacks TLS through an SSLv2 listener anywhere the same key is used.

Remove SSLv2 from the protocol list and reload.
Check every other service using the same certificate — SMTP, IMAP, an admin port.
Re-key the certificate afterwards: recorded sessions remain vulnerable to the old key.

How to confirm it worked

openssl s_client -connect ‹host›:443 -ssl2 </dev/null 2>&1 | tail -1 — expect a failure

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

An SSL 2.0 handshake succeeded against ‹host›. ‹source›. SSL 2.0 has no handshake integrity, uses MD5 throughout, and permits cipher-suite downgrade by design. CVE-2016-0800 (DROWN) turns it into a cross-protocol attack on TLS sessions that use the same RSA key.