Método
empleado para demostrar la identidad de una entidad. La calidad o fortaleza del
método está fuertemente ligada a la criptografía subyacente. En términos
generales, se considera superior un método basado en criptografía asimétrica
frente a métodos basados en secretos compartidos.
Method for demonstrating
knowledge of a secret. The quality of the authentication method, its strength
is determined by the cryptographic basis of the key distribution service on which
it is based. A symmetric key based method, in which both entities share common
authentication information, is considered to be a weaker method than an
asymmetric key based method, in which not all the authentication information is
shared by both entities.
http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/8329799/glossary.htm