The process of identifying an individual, message, file, and other data.
The two major roles for authentication, therefore, are as follows: (1)
confirming that the user is who he or she claims to be; and (2) that the
message is authentic and not altered or forged. The term authentication should not be confused
with a closely related term, authorization,
which means determining what a user is allowed to do or see.
In recent years, a number of products have been developed to
assist in the authentication process, including biometrics (assessing usersÂ’
signatures, facial features, and other biological identifiers); smart cards
(having microprocessor chips that run cryptographic algorithms and store a private key); digital certificates
containing public or private keys;
and SecureID, a commercialized
product using a key and the current time to generate a random numbers stream
that is verifiable by a server—thus ensuring that a potential user puts in the
number on the card within a set amount of time (typically 5 or 10 seconds).
See Also: AAA;
Algorithm; Authorization; Key; SecureID.
Graham, R. Hacking Lexicon. Robert Graham Website. http://www
.linuxsecurity.com/resource_files/documentation/hacking-dict.html.
