Authentication versus Authorization
What's the difference in context of web applications? I see the abbreviation "auth" a lot. Does it stand for auth-entication or auth-orization? Or is it both?
Authentication is the process of ascertaining that somebody really is who they claim to be.
Authorization refers to rules that determine who is allowed to do what. E.g. Adam may be authorized to create and delete databases, while Usama is only authorised to read.
The two concepts are completely orthogonal and independent, but both are central to security design, and the failure to get either one correct opens up the avenue to compromise.
In terms of web apps, very crudely speaking, authentication is when you check login credentials to see if you recognize a user as logged in, and authorization is when you look up in your access control whether you allow the user to view, edit, delete or create content.
In short, please. :-)
Authentication = login + password (who you are)
Authorization = permissions (what you are allowed to do)
Short "auth" is most likely to refer either to the first one or to both.
As Authentication vs Authorization puts it:
Authentication is the mechanism whereby systems may securely identify their users. Authentication systems provide an answers to the questions:
- Who is the user?
- Is the user really who he/she represents himself to be?
Authorization, by contrast, is the mechanism by which a system determines what level of access a particular authenticated user should have to secured resources controlled by the system. For example, a database management system might be designed so as to provide certain specified individuals with the ability to retrieve information from a database but not the ability to change data stored in the datbase, while giving other individuals the ability to change data. Authorization systems provide answers to the questions:
- Is user X authorized to access resource R?
- Is user X authorized to perform operation P?
- Is user X authorized to perform operation P on resource R?
See also:
- Authentication vs. authorization on Wikipedia
I prefer Verification and Permissions to Authentication and Authorization.
It is easier in my head and in my code to think of "verification" and "permissions" because the two words
- don't sound alike
- don't have the same abbreviation
Authentication is verification and Authorization is checking permission(s). Auth can mean either, but is used more often as "User Auth" i.e. "User Authentication"