Authentication

Now, back to the idea of authentication.

A system may choose to authenticate a user in one of 3 ways:

  1. Something the user knows.
    • E.g., a password, PIN, answer to a secret question, recognition of a secret image, etc.
  2. Something the user has.
    • E.g., a phone, magnetic card, house key, token, etc.
  3. Something the user is.
    • E.g., biometrics (fingerprints, face recognition), CAPTCHA (to differentiate between humans and computers,) etc.

Let's analyze each next.

These notes by Miriam Briskman are licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0 and based on sources.