This chapter is concerned with cryptographic protocols. We begin with an explanation of what components a cryptographic protocol consists of. We then illustrate the complexity of designing a secure cryptographic protocol by considering an artificially simple scenario, for which we propose and analyse seven candidate protocols. For each of these protocols, we comment on whether, or under which conditions, they meet the required specification. We go on to look at the important class of authentication and key establishment protocols. We identify typical goals and examine some important protocols in this class, including the Diffie–Hellman protocol.