Kerberos

Synonyms

Project athena

Related Concepts

Single Sign-On; Symmetric Cryptography

Definition

Kerberos is a single sign-on system for distributed environments that allows a centralized entity running on behalf of a principal to prove its identity to a verifier (another principal) in an environment where principals do not trust each other. It uses symmetric key cryptography and provides scalability (works in large, heterogeneous environments), transparency (works in the background), reliability (if redundancy is provided), and security (provides authentication and confidentiality) in an end-to-end fashion. In fact, it is a de facto standard for heterogeneous networks.

Background

Kerberos was designed in the mid-1980s as part of MIT’s Project Athena. It is based on the Needham–Schroeder trust model.

Theory

Main ComponentsKerberos distribution center (KDC) is the most important entity in a Kerberos environment. KDC holds all principals’ (users, applications, or services) secret keys and is...