Hands-On RESTful API Design Patterns and Best Practices

Understanding authentication and authentication attacks

Authentication is a process to determine the identity of an entity (a process, a machine, or a human user) to either disallow or allow that entity to access underlying application functionalities.

Logon authentication, network authentication, IP authentication, remote authentication, basic authentication, and client certificates are a few authentication types.

Authentication attacks are processes with which hackers attempt to exploit an authentication process and gain unauthorized access. Successfully penetrating an authentication system and gaining unauthorized access will allow a hacker to steal sensitive information and alter, corrupt, or delete valuable data. Imagine a hacker assumes ...