Cipher suites and/or other parameters for cryptographic protection of communications are dynamically selected to more closely match the intended uses of the sessions. A client indicates a planned use of a session to a server. The client's indication of the planned use may be explicit or implicit. The server selects an appropriate set of parameters for cryptographic protection of communications based at least in part on the indicated planned use and the client and server complete a handshake process to establish a cryptographically protected communications session to use the selected set of parameters.