Kerberos is a distributed authentication protocol or system that is used for the network security. It was originally developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Kerberos is based on the Cryptography that uses the same key for encryption and decryption. It provides the strong client/server authentication applications by secret key.
It encrypts all the communications between the client and server computers. Kerberos helps you to maintain the confidentiality and the integrity of the data communication. Unlike PKI it does not generate the digital signatures. Kerberos uses DES algorithms for encryption.
It is the solution for your network security problems it provides the strong cryptography to ensure the integrity and the authentication of your data in your computer network. Additionally, Kerberos provide the following major benefits.
- Mutual Authentication.
- Interoperability.
- Efficient client/server authentication.
- Privacy through encryption.
- Faster Connections.
- It prevents the plain text passwords to be transmitted over the network.
Due to great features the Microsoft operating systems will adopt the Kerberos as the default network authentication protocol. The following services support the Kerberos.
- Client/Server Authentication
- Print Services
- Distributed File System management
- Remote Server.
- Remote File Access.
- Active directory.
- Intranet Authentication to IIS