authenticatielaag

The authenticatielaag is a layer in software architecture responsible for verifying user identities and establishing trusted sessions. It sits at the boundary between the presentation tier and the business logic, and it may rely on external identity providers or on local credential stores. The primary functions are to authenticate users, issue tokens or session identifiers, and present reliable evidence of identity to downstream components.

Key components include credential storage, identity protocols, session management, and token services. Common authentication methods include password-based logins, multi-factor authentication, biometric verification, and federated approaches such as OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, and SAML. The authenticatielaag may support LDAP or Kerberos in enterprise environments, and often uses JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) or similar artifacts to convey identity.

In a layered architecture, the authenticatielaag can operate as a centralized identity provider or as a service within each app, enabling single sign-on and policy enforcement.

Security considerations involve protecting credentials with strong hashing, TLS, token lifetimes, revocation, and auditing; protecting against phishing and credential stuffing; implementing MFA; and separating authentication from authorization.

Related topics include authentication, authorization, identity management, IAM, IdP, and MFA.