Disable SSL fallback and use only TLS for outbound connections in .NET? (Poodle mitigation)

We are doing the same thing. To support only TLS 1.2 and no SSL protocols, you can do this:

System.Net.ServicePointManager.SecurityProtocol = SecurityProtocolType.Tls12;

SecurityProtocolType.Tls is only TLS 1.0, not all TLS versions.

As a side: If you want to check that your site does not allow SSL connections, you can do so here (I don't think this will be affected by the above setting, we had to edit the registry to force IIS to use TLS for incoming connections): https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/index.html

To disable SSL 2.0 and 3.0 in IIS, see this page: https://www.sslshopper.com/article-how-to-disable-ssl-2.0-in-iis-7.html

@Eddie Loeffen's answer seems to be the most popular answer to this question, but it has some bad long term effects. If you review the documentation page for System.Net.ServicePointManager.SecurityProtocol here the remarks section implies that the negotiation phase should just address this (and forcing the protocol is bad practice because in the future, TLS 1.2 will be compromised as well). However, we wouldn't be looking for this answer if it did.

Researching, it appears that the ALPN negotiation protocol is required to get to TLS1.2 in the negotiation phase. We took that as our starting point and tried newer versions of the .Net framework to see where support starts. We found that .Net 4.5.2 does not support negotiation to TLS 1.2, but .Net 4.6 does.

So, even though forcing TLS1.2 will get the job done now, I recommend that you upgrade to .Net 4.6 instead. Since this is a PCI DSS issue for June 2016, the window is short, but the new framework is a better answer.

UPDATE: Working from the comments, I built this:

ServicePointManager.SecurityProtocol = 0;    
foreach (SecurityProtocolType protocol in SecurityProtocolType.GetValues(typeof(SecurityProtocolType)))
    {
        switch (protocol)
        {
            case SecurityProtocolType.Ssl3:
            case SecurityProtocolType.Tls:
            case SecurityProtocolType.Tls11:
                break;
            default:
                ServicePointManager.SecurityProtocol |= protocol;
            break;
        }
    }

In order to validate the concept, I or'd together SSL3 and TLS1.2 and ran the code targeting a server that supports only TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.2 (1.1 is disabled). With the or'd protocols, it seems to connect fine. If I change to SSL3 and TLS 1.1, that failed to connect. My validation uses HttpWebRequest from System.Net and just calls GetResponse(). For instance, I tried this and failed:

        HttpWebRequest request = WebRequest.Create("https://www.contoso.com/my/web/resource") as HttpWebRequest;
        ServicePointManager.SecurityProtocol = SecurityProtocolType.Ssl3 | SecurityProtocolType.Tls11;
        request.GetResponse();

while this worked:

        HttpWebRequest request = WebRequest.Create("https://www.contoso.com/my/web/resource") as HttpWebRequest;
        ServicePointManager.SecurityProtocol = SecurityProtocolType.Ssl3 | SecurityProtocolType.Tls12;
        request.GetResponse();

This has an advantage over forcing TLS 1.2 in that, if the .Net framework is upgraded so that there are more entries in the Enum, they will be supported by the code as is. It has a disadvantage over just using .Net 4.6 in that 4.6 uses ALPN and should support new protocols if no restriction is specified.

Edit 4/29/2019 - Microsoft published this article last October. It has a pretty good synopsis of their recommendation of how this should be done in the various versions of .net framework.

@watson

On windows forms it is available, at the top of the class put

  static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        ServicePointManager.SecurityProtocol = SecurityProtocolType.Tls12;
       //other stuff here
    }

since windows is single threaded, its all you need, in the event its a service you need to put it right above the call to the service (since there is no telling what thread you'll be on).

using System.Security.Principal 

is also needed.