Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)

Whenever you want to visit a website, one of the first things you would do is open your web browser and enter the website's address and in a few seconds the web page loads up. The underlying protocol that is used to retrieve the web page is known as the HTTP. HTTP is defined by RFC 2616, 7230, and 7231 and uses request messages to retrieve a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) or, in other words, a website's address such as https://www.cisco.com/index.html. The client would send an HTTP GET Request message to the intended web server and the server would send a response back.

HTTP is a request and response protocol and, due to its design to transfer data in plain text, is an unsecure protocol.