Biometric authentication is a method of verifying a person's identity based on a unique physical or behavioral trait, such as a fingerprint, face, iris or voice. In a business setting, it is used to unlock devices or approve access as a second factor. Unlike a password, a biometric trait cannot be changed if compromised, so it works best combined with other factors.
Related term in this glossary: MFA (multi-factor authentication)
biometrics, fingerprint authentication, facial recognition, biometric login
Related terms
Strong password
A strong password is long, unique to each service and hard to guess, ideally a passphrase of several words with at least 14 characters. Length matters more than mixing symbols, and it works best alongside a password manager and multi-factor authentication, because even a strong password is useless once it is reused or leaked.
CAPTCHA
A CAPTCHA is a test a website uses to tell a person from an automated program, such as typing distorted letters, picking images or simply checking a box. It protects sign-up, login and checkout forms against bots that try stolen passwords or generate spam.
LDAP and Kerberos
LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) is the standard protocol for querying and updating a company's directory of users, computers and groups, such as Active Directory. Kerberos is the protocol that verifies user identity with encrypted tickets so passwords do not travel across the network. Together they underpin sign-in and authentication in Windows (Active Directory) domains.
SSO (single sign-on)
SSO (single sign-on) lets people access many applications with one account and one sign-in instead of a password per system. It makes work easier, cuts down on weak or reused passwords and lets you remove all of a person's access from one place when they leave the company.
Conditional access
Conditional access is the Microsoft Entra ID feature that decides whether to allow, block or require an extra step at sign-in based on context: who the user is, what device they are on, where they are signing in from and how risky the sign-in looks. For example, it can require MFA outside the office or block devices the company does not manage.
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