TLS is an IETF standard similar to SSL that provides cryptographic security and secure connections between parties through the establishment of a secure session. It aims to securely transmit data via record layer encapsulation and encryption, using techniques like cryptographic computations, MACs, and the generation of secrets through pseudorandom functions and data expansion. TLS supports various cipher suites, certificate types, and alert codes while making some changes compared to SSL in areas like record formatting, PRF usage, and handshake messaging.