What is the difference between Authentication and Authorization?

Authenticaton and authorization  is interrelated to each other and both looks identically but there is huge difference between them.Process of authentication  is done before authorization.

Authentication

In simple term Authentication is a process of  checking "Is valid User"?

Authentication is the process of verifying the identity of a user by getting credentials of that user and using those credentials to verify the user's identity.If the credentials are valid, the authorization process starts.Authentication process always proceeds to Authorization process.

Authorization

Authorization means whether authenticated user has rights to perform such activity.It means authorization always occurs after authentication.

Example to understand the difference - Let assume you are entering in your office/college by showing your I-Card, that is called authentication. But entering into office/college does't mean that you can enter into manager cabin etc.It means you are not authorized to enter into manager's cabin.This means process for checking whether user has rights or not is called authorization.

Here is the comparison table -

Authentication	Authorization
It is the process of verifying the identity of a user.	It is the process of checking whether the user has the access rights to the system.
It always occurs before authorization.	It is the process of allowing an authenticated user access to particular resources.
It has two separate levels because all the requests coming through the IIS before it is handled.	It allows two ways to authorize the access to a given resources.
They have additional schemes like windows authentication, forms authentication and passport authentication.	The two ways are URL authorization and File authorization.

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