Fundamentals of Authentication and Authorization

Learn to distinguish between authentication and authorization, and learn their importance for a secure system.

Authentication

This is the mechanism for establishing the identities of users in a system. When users have stated their identity, it’s necessary to validate that they are the rightful owners of that identity. Verifying the user’s identification is known as authentication.

A simple example of authentication is when operating systems authenticate users when they try to log in to the system. Another more involved example is when we try to log in to our Gmail account and Google asks us to verify our identity through two-factor authentication (2FA) by sending our phone or other email account a one-time password (OTP) code.

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