Chapter 2 - Access Control Technologies and Methods

Question 1

Access control technologies and methods

Answer 1

Access control technologies and methods refer to a set of security measures and tools used to regulate and manage access to resources, systems, and data within an organization or network. They are designed to ensure that only authorized individuals or entities are granted access to specific assets while preventing unauthorized access.

Question 2

Single Sign-On

Answer 2

Single sign-on, or SSO, is an access control method whereby a user can
authenticate once and be able to access many different information systems without having to reauthenticate into each one separately.

Question 3

Reduced Sign-On

Answer 3

An authentication method where many applications and systems in an organisation will utilise a centralised user management service such as LDAP or Active Directory. However, applications and the centralised service
will not manage the logged-in state, which means that users will have to log in to each application and system using their single userid and password.

Question 4

LDAP

Answer 4

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol is a TCP/IP-based communications protocol that is used for various directory pur-
poses, including authentication. LDAP is also a data storage model that provides specific
methods for storing directory-type information. Because it is an open standard, LDAP is
very popular and is the basis for a number of commercial products, including Microsoft
Active Directory.

Question 5

Active Directory

Answer 5

Microsoft Active Directory is a commercial implementation of LDAP. “AD,” as it is commonly called, is built into Microsoft server operating systems and is tightly
coupled with Microsoft’s workstation and domain authentication and also Exchange e-mail

Question 6

Diameter

Answer 6

Diameter is an authentication protocol similar to RADIUS. The name is a pun on RADIUS (in geometry, a circle’s diameter is twice the radius) and provides an upgrade path for RADIUS. Diameter has several advantages over RADIUS, including:
- Diameter uses the more reliable TCP protocol instead of UDP.
- A Diameter session can be encrypted with SSL (TLS).
RADIUS and Diameter are not forwards or backwards-compatible

Question 7

TACACS

Answer 7

Terminal Access Controller Access-Control System is a remote access authentication protocol that permits a device to communicate to a central authentication server to determine whether a user should be permitted to log on to the device. TACACS is defined in RFC 1492.

Question 8

Kerberos

Answer 8

Kerberos is a standard protocol that provides for mutual authentication (an end user and a Kerberos server authenticate each other) over a non-secure network.