Difference between Kerberos Version 4 and Version 5


What is Kerberos?

Sometimes, the Internet can be a dangerous environment. It frequently involves the sharing of sensitive information about users, such as usernames, passwords, financial information, etc. Once information is transferred, hackers and criminals can scrutinize it in a variety of ways. In addition, a website may receive high visitor traffic at times.

Kerberos is a computer network authentication system that uses tickets to allow nodes talking over an insecure network to confirm their identity to one another securely.

Kerberos was created and implemented at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the first three versions of the program were only available on the MIT campus. Kerberos was created primarily for MIT's Project Athena and was designed by Steve Miller and Clifford Neuman.

Kerberos relies on an authentication server to function (AS). This type of server is required to give users 'tickets,' which act as validation for their requests.

Kerberos Version 4

Kerberos was not available to the general public or the Internet until the late 1980s when its version 4 software was released.

Kerberos version 4 is an authentication system that uses DES encryption to verify a user's identity when they log in. The authentication is based on the sending system's capacity to encrypt the current time with the common key, which the receiving system can decrypt and compare to its own present time.

This means that Kerberos works by verifying the user's password with the kinit command, which acquires the ticket at the time. The ticket is promptly destroyed once the session is finished.

Kerberos Version 5

Kerberos Version 5 is a protocol for improving the security in the authentication and authenticating a single dispersed service over a network. It is commonly used in Windows 2000 and Windows XP.

Version 5 operates by allowing users on all business computing platforms to access all services in a heterogeneous environment using a single user account database.

Difference between Kerberos Version 4 and Version 5

The following table highlights the major differences between Kerberos Version 4 and Version 5.

Kerberos Version 4Kerberos Version 5
DES encryptions techniques.Any type of encryption can be employed because the encrypted text is tagged with an encryption type identifier.
“Receiver-makes-right” encoding system.ASN.1 coding system.
For a ticket lifespan is 5 minutes, the ticket lifetime must be provided in units.The ticket lifetime is defined as an arbitrary amount of time.
Ticket support is satisfactoryTicket support is excellent and facilitates forwarding, renewing and postdating tickets.
Only a few IP addresses and other addresses for other sorts of network protocols are included.Multiple IP addresses and other addresses for various network protocols are included.

Updated on: 26-Aug-2021

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