Digest access authentication: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 13:39, 13 July 2024

Revision as of 08:47, 21 August 2024

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'''Digest access authentication''' is one of the agreed-upon methods a [[web server]] can use to negotiate credentials, such as username or password, with a user's [[web browser]]. This can be used to confirm the identity of a user before sending sensitive information, such as online banking transaction history. It applies a [[hash function]] to the username and [[password]] before sending them over the network. In contrast, [[basic access authentication]] uses the easily reversible [[Base64]] encoding instead of hashing, making it non-secure unless used in conjunction with [[Transport Layer Security|TLS]].

Technically, digest authentication is an application of [[MD5]] [[cryptographic hash]]ing with usage of [[cryptographic nonce|nonce]] values to prevent [[replay attack]]s. It uses the [[Hypertext Transfer Protocol|HTTP]] protocol.

ThisDIGEST-MD5 standardas a [[Simple_Authentication_and_Security_Layer|SASL]] mechanism specified by {{IETF RFC|2831}} is obsolete since July 2011.<ref>[https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6331 Moving DIGEST-MD5 to Historic, July 2011].</ref>

== Overview ==