1.1 Glossary

This document uses the following terms:

application protocol: A network protocol that operates in the application layer at the top of the OSI model. It visibly accomplishes the task that the user or other agent wants to perform. This is distinguished from all manner of support protocols: from Ethernet or IP at the bottom to security and routing protocols. While necessary, these are not always visible to the user. Application protocols include, for instance, HTTP and Server Message Block (SMB).

certification authority (CA): A third party that issues public key certificates. Certificates serve to bind public keys to a user identity. Each user and certification authority (CA) can decide whether to trust another user or CA for a specific purpose, and whether this trust is to be transitive. For more information, see [RFC3280].

credential: Previously established, authentication data that is used by a security principal to establish its own identity. When used in reference to the Netlogon Protocol, it is the data that is stored in the NETLOGON_CREDENTIAL structure.

CredSSP client: Any application that executes the role of the client to authenticate the identity of a user at the network layer to the server by using the CredSSP Protocol.

CredSSP server: Any application that executes the role of the server to authenticate the identity of a user at the network layer to the server by using the CredSSP Protocol.

domain: A set of users and computers sharing a common namespace and management infrastructure. At least one computer member of the set has to act as a domain controller (DC) and host a member list that identifies all members of the domain, as well as optionally hosting the Active Directory service. The domain controller provides authentication of members, creating a unit of trust for its members. Each domain has an identifier that is shared among its members. For more information, see [MS-AUTHSOD] section 1.1.1.5 and [MS-ADTS].

Generic Security Services (GSS): An Internet standard, as described in [RFC2743], for providing security services to applications. It consists of an application programming interface (GSS-API) set, as well as standards that describe the structure of the security data.

Kerberos: An authentication system that enables two parties to exchange private information across an otherwise open network by assigning a unique key (called a ticket) to each user that logs on to the network and then embedding these tickets into messages sent by the users. For more information, see [MS-KILE].

man in the middle (MITM): An attack that deceives a server or client into accepting an unauthorized upstream host as the actual legitimate host. Instead, the upstream host is an attacker's host that is manipulating the network so that the attacker's host appears to be the desired destination. This enables the attacker to decrypt and access all network traffic that would go to the legitimate host. The attacker is able to read, insert, and modify at-will messages between two hosts without either party knowing that the link between them is compromised.

mutual authentication: A mode in which each party verifies the identity of the other party, as described in [RFC3748] section 7.2.1.

NT LAN Manager (NTLM) Authentication Protocol: A protocol using a challenge-response mechanism for authentication in which clients are able to verify their identities without sending a password to the server. It consists of three messages, commonly referred to as Type 1 (negotiation), Type 2 (challenge) and Type 3 (authentication).

NTOWF: In the context of an NTLM authentication, a NT LAN Manager (NT) one-way function (OWF) used to create a hash based on the user's password to generate a principal's secret key. The NTLM hash superseded the LAN Manager (LM) hash.

OCTET STRING: An ASN.1 variable-length sequence of 8-bit values to which a variety of data types and formats can be encoded for transmission. The encoding rules follow Basic Encoding Rules (BER), and optional Canonical Encoding Rules (CER) or Distinguished Encoding Rules (DER) restrictions on BER. Values have 2 possible forms: binary or hexadecimal. The representation in octets of values of identifiers, lengths, and contents of integers shown in hexadecimal have two hexadecimal digits per octet. The values of the contents of character strings shown in hexadecimal have one character per octet.

public key infrastructure (PKI): The laws, policies, standards, and software that regulate or manipulate certificates and public and private keys. In practice, it is a system of digital certificates, certificate authorities (CAs), and other registration authorities that verify and authenticate the validity of each party involved in an electronic transaction. For more information, see [X509] section 6.

security protocol: A protocol that performs authentication and possibly additional security services on a network.

service principal name (SPN): The name a client uses to identify a service for mutual authentication. (For more information, see [RFC1964] section 2.1.1.) An SPN consists of either two parts or three parts, each separated by a forward slash ('/'). The first part is the service class, the second part is the host name, and the third part (if present) is the service name. For example, "ldap/dc-01.fabrikam.com/fabrikam.com" is a three-part SPN where "ldap" is the service class name, "dc-01.fabrikam.com" is the host name, and "fabrikam.com" is the service name. See [SPNNAMES] for more information about SPN format and composing a unique SPN.

Simple and Protected GSS-API Negotiation Mechanism (SPNEGO): An authentication mechanism that allows Generic Security Services (GSS) peers to determine whether their credentials support a common set of GSS-API security mechanisms, to negotiate different options within a given security mechanism or different options from several security mechanisms, to select a service, and to establish a security context among themselves using that service. SPNEGO is specified in [RFC4178].

Transport Layer Security (TLS): A security protocol that supports confidentiality and integrity of messages in client and server applications communicating over open networks. TLS supports server and, optionally, client authentication by using X.509 certificates (as specified in [X509]). TLS is standardized in the IETF TLS working group.

trust: To accept another authority's statements for the purposes of authentication and authorization, especially in the case of a relationship between two domains. If domain A trusts domain B, domain A accepts domain B's authentication and authorization statements for principals represented by security principal objects in domain B; for example, the list of groups to which a particular user belongs. As a noun, a trust is the relationship between two domains described in the previous sentence.

Unicode string: A Unicode 8-bit string is an ordered sequence of 8-bit units, a Unicode 16-bit string is an ordered sequence of 16-bit code units, and a Unicode 32-bit string is an ordered sequence of 32-bit code units. In some cases, it could be acceptable not to terminate with a terminating null character. Unless otherwise specified, all Unicode strings follow the UTF-16LE encoding scheme with no Byte Order Mark (BOM).

MAY, SHOULD, MUST, SHOULD NOT, MUST NOT: These terms (in all caps) are used as defined in [RFC2119]. All statements of optional behavior use either MAY, SHOULD, or SHOULD NOT.