Authentication Methods for Computer Systems Security

With the rapid growth of networked systems and applications such as e-commerce, the demand for effective computer security is increasing. Most computer systems are protected through a process of user identification and authentication. While identification is usually non-private information provided by users to identify themselves and can be known by system administrators and other system users, authentication provides secret, private user information which can authenticate their identity. There are various authentication approaches and techniques, from passwords to public keys (Smith, 2002). This article presents the three main authentication approaches, their technology and implementation issues, and the factors to be considered when choosing an authentication method.