Basic

E748454

Basic is a simple HTTP authentication scheme defined in RFC 2617 that transmits user credentials encoded in Base64, typically over a secure transport like HTTPS.

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Statements (46)

Predicate Object
instanceOf HTTP authentication scheme
authenticationScope per-connection and per-URI path
authenticationType challenge-response
category web authentication
challengeHeaderFieldName WWW-Authenticate
clientBehavior sends Authorization header with each protected request
compatibleWith HTTP/1.0
HTTP/1.1
credentialEncoding Base64-encoded UTF-8 string
credentialFormat username:password
credentialReuse clients may reuse credentials for same realm
definedIn RFC 2617 NERFINISHED
RFC 7617 NERFINISHED
discouragedFor high-security applications without TLS
doesNotProvide integrity protection
mutual authentication
replay protection
encodingProperty Base64 is an encoding not encryption
headerFieldName Authorization
headerUsed Authorization header
introducedIn HTTP/1.0 era
passwordStorageRecommendation store password equivalents such as salted hashes
passwordStorageRequirement servers should not store plaintext passwords
realmUsage identifies the protection space
relatedTo Bearer authentication
Digest access authentication
responseHeaderUsed WWW-Authenticate header
risk credentials can be easily decoded from Base64
schemeNameInHeader Basic
securityBestPractice combine with HTTPS and strong password policies
securityRecommendation use only over secure transport such as HTTPS
serverBehavior challenges with WWW-Authenticate: Basic realm="..."
standardizedBy Internet Engineering Task Force
surface form: IETF
statusCodeUsedForChallenge 401 Unauthorized
supports per-request authentication
transmissionSecurityProperty credentials are not encrypted by the scheme itself
transmits user credentials
username and password
typicallyUsedOver HTTPS GENERATED
TLS GENERATED
useCase simple, low-security authentication scenarios
usedFor authenticating HTTP clients to servers
usesEncoding Base64 NERFINISHED
vulnerability susceptible to credential interception over unencrypted HTTP
widelyImplementedBy HTTP client libraries
web browsers

Referenced by (1)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.