Explain like I’m 5: Kerberos

Explain like I’m 5 years old: Kerberos – what is Kerberos, and why should I care? While this topic probably can not be explained to a 5 year-old and be understood, this is my attempt at defragmenting documentation with some visual aids and digestible language. In a nutshell Basically, Kerberos comes down to just this: a protocol for authentication uses tickets to authenticate avoids storing passwords locally or sending them over the internet involves a trusted 3rd-party built on symmetric-key cryptography You have a ticket – your proof of identity encrypted with a secret key for the particular service requested – on your local machine (creation of a ticket is described below); so long as it’s valid, you can access the requested service that is within a Kerberos realm.