Skip to content
IT Atlas

IT Fundamentals · Concepts

Identity Fundamentals

Authentication proves who you are; authorization decides what you may do; identity management maintains both over time.

FoundationalUpdated 2026-09-01

Overview

An identity is a record representing a person, device or workload, holding credentials and attributes. Authentication verifies a claim to that identity; authorization evaluates entitlements; auditing records what happened.

Modern practice centralises all three in an identity provider so policy, strong authentication and lifecycle are implemented once rather than per application.