Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS)
Normal HTTP requests are sent in clear text, and for some Internet transactions such as online banking or e-commerce, this poses a significant security problem. The solution for such applications is to use the HTTPS protocol. HTTPS uses a security technology known as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), which encrypts the information sent between the client and the host. You can tell when you are accessing a page with HTTPS because the URL will have an HTTPS:// address as opposed to 'plain' HTTP, which uses an address of HTTP://. An example of an HTTPS URL address is https://www.nationalonlinebank.com.
Like HTTP, HTTPS uses the TCP transport protocol and operates at the application layer of the OSI model.