What is Spring security authentication and authorization?
Answer»
Authentication: This refers to the process of verifying the identity of the user, using the credentials provided when accessing CERTAIN restricted resources. Two STEPS are involved in authenticating a user, namely identification and verification. An example is logging into a website with a username and a password. This is like answering the question Who are you?
Authorization: It is the ability to determine a user's authority to perform an action or to view data, ASSUMING they have successfully logged in. This ENSURES that users can only access the parts of a resource that they are AUTHORIZED to access. It could be thought of as an answer to the question Can a user do/read this?