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Difficulty: HardAuthentication, Authorization, and Accounting (AAA)

Match each operational enterprise security scenario on the left with the corresponding Authentication, Authorization, or Accounting (AAA) functional mechanism on the right.

  • An enterprise user submits a password and hardware security key response to an identity provider (IdP) to establish a trusted session.Authentication — Verifying claimed identity using credentials to establish initial session trust.
  • A microservices gateway inspects embedded scope claims within a bearer token to determine if an API client can execute a database write operation.Authorization — Evaluating granted scope claims and policy rules to govern resource access permissions.
  • A remote access gateway transmits session connection timestamps, disconnect codes, and total megabytes transferred to a central RADIUS server.Accounting — Measuring resource consumption and session duration metrics for operational tracking.
  • A privileged access management (PAM) system records administrative sudo commands, process IDs, and file modification details to an audit repository.Accounting — Logging explicit user actions and operational modifications for security auditability and non-repudiation.

Answer

The user credential submission matches Authentication (verifying claimed identity); the API gateway token scope check matches Authorization (evaluating access rights); transmitting session timestamps and bandwidth metrics matches Accounting (measuring resource consumption); and logging privileged commands matches Accounting (logging actions for auditability and non-repudiation).
Each security scenario corresponds directly to its functional AAA pillar: validating user credentials (passwords/keys) establishes identity (Authentication); evaluating token scopes determines permission boundaries for API write calls (Authorization); recording connection metrics tracks resource utilization (Session Accounting); and logging administrative command execution creates a verifiable trail for non-repudiation (Activity Accounting).

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze scenario 1 (credential validation at the IdP).
Identified as proof of identity (passwords and MFA tokens).
Authentication is strictly responsible for verifying that a subject is who they claim to be prior to granting access.
2
Analyze scenario 2 (evaluating bearer token scopes at an API gateway).
Identified as permission enforcement based on policy/scopes.
Authorization determines what an authenticated subject is allowed to perform on specific resources.
3
Analyze scenario 3 (transmitting session start/stop times and data volume).
Identified as resource utilization and session tracking metrics.
Accounting measures consumption metrics such as connection time, data throughput, and session state.
4
Analyze scenario 4 (recording executed sudo commands and file changes in a PAM system).
Identified as security audit logging and accountability enforcement.
Accounting captures event logs of user actions to ensure traceability, compliance auditing, and non-repudiation.

Key Concept

Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting (AAA)
Estimated Time:2m 0s
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Topics

Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting (AAA)

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