What Is Authentication?

Authentication is a process for identifying and verifying who is sending a request. The diagram below shows a simplified version of an authentication process.

General Process of Authentication

	The sender obtains the necessary credential.
	The sender sends a request with the credential to the recipient.
	The recipient uses the credential to verify the sender truly sent the request.
	If yes, the recipient processes the request. If no, the recipient rejects the request and responds accordingly.

For further discussion of authentication, see the techencylopedia.com entry for authentication. For definitions of common industry terms related to authentication, see the RSA Laboratories Glossary.

The subsequent sections describe how SQS implements authentication to protect you and your customers' data.