What if a bright researcher develops a better security system than SSL and makes it obsolete?
This is unlikely to happen for a long time. SSL is such a great system for security because it is built into most servers and browsers that are running on the Internet. To replace SSL as the security protocol of choice, a system must be as ubiquitous as SSL. That means supporting the protocol in obsolete software like the browser in Windows 95, which some people still use. Even if there is a great breakthrough today in security that will be built into every new piece of software sold, we could not use it reliably until all the old systems were replaced with new ones–probably at least 10 years. In the world of computer security, they are many breakthroughs and systems that companies have created with great promise and fanfare that ended up as failures. Unless these systems are thoroughly examined by a large team of experts in cryptography, it is likely that holes in the security will quickly be found by the legions of hackers who attack such products like a pack of wolves. In the past,
