Autentimislogikat

Autentimislogikat, or authentication logic, is the study of the principles and methods used to verify the identities of entities in information systems. It blends cryptography, protocol design, and policy modeling to decide when a claimed identity is accepted.

The field covers identities, credentials, and assertions, and the processes that determine access rights. It clearly distinguishes authentication from authorization, the latter deciding what an authenticated user may do.

Core concepts include authentication factors (something you know, something you have, something you are), session management, and how credentials are issued, stored, and verified. It also encompasses single sign-on and multi-factor authentication.

Protocols and mechanisms include password-based schemes, challenge-response, and cryptographic protocols such as TLS mutual authentication and federated identity protocols like OAuth, SAML, and OpenID Connect.

Security properties include confidentiality and integrity of credentials, resistance to replay and impersonation, forward secrecy, and mutual authentication to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks.

Threats and defenses: phishing, credential stuffing, replay attacks, MITM, and weak credential storage. Defenses include strong credential storage (hashing with salts), phishing-resistant flows, hardware security keys, and risk-based or continuous authentication.

Relationship to broader fields: It sits within information security, cryptography, and identity and access management, and supports policy decisions and risk management.

History and trends: From early challenge-response and Kerberos to modern federated identities and zero-trust architectures, research continues in risk-based authentication and continuous authentication.

See also: identity management, authentication protocols, MFA, OAuth, SAML, OpenID Connect, cryptography.