The word authentication is used to refer to the confirmation that is made through electronic means of the identity of an individual or an organism, as well as of all its operations, transactions and documents, as well as their authorship.
Any person who needs to access a computer requires an identification and authentication process, to prove that the person is really who they say they are. In order to access any network service, it is necessary to go through three processes: Authentication, which refers to the procedure through which the person enters their identification data without making a mistake. Authorization is the procedure through which the system approves the access of the previously identified person to certain resources of the same. Registration, is the procedure by which the system records each of the accesses made by the person, with or without authorization.
In order to carry out an authentication procedure, it is necessary to put into practice some of these methods: Authentication by knowledge, this is based on information that only the person knows. Authentication by membership, is based on some particularity of the user. Authentication by characteristics, this is based on some physical characteristic characteristic of the person. As can be seen, authentication involves physical and explainable features related to the entry, use or modification of the system.
When the system requests a physical authentication, it refers to some object or physical feature of the person, in this case a biometric device is used, for example the fingerprint capture, however, if the system requests a logical authentication, it refers to that information or data that only the person knows, for example a password.
When the system combines two or more authentication procedures, it will be talking about a multiple authentication system, this kind of authentication is considered the most secure in the system, an example of this type of authentication would be when a person uses a credit card. debit, for this the physical authentication that is the card and the logical authentication that is the password that the user has memorized is used
