Credential
A credential is a piece of information or cryptographic material bound to an identity and used to authenticate that identity.
Definition
A credential is a piece of information or cryptographic material bound to an identity and used during authentication to prove possession, knowledge, or identity attributes. Credentials may include passwords, OTP seeds, private keys, passkeys, certificates, smart cards, or hardware-bound authenticators. In modern IAM, the protection, lifecycle, revocation, rotation, and recovery of credentials are as important as the authentication protocol itself.
Why it matters
Compromised credentials remain one of the main causes of account takeover and unauthorized access.
The Ariovis perspective
Secrets must be treated as governed assets with ownership, controlled storage, rotation and revocation. Moving a static secret into a vault is useful, but it does not solve excessive privilege or a missing lifecycle.
Related services
Common pitfalls
- A frequent mistake is treating credentials as static secrets instead of governed security assets with a lifecycle.
Standards and protocols
- NIST SP 800-63B
Related terms
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