Key Distribution Center - Security Overview

Security Overview

For instance, an administrator may have established a policy that only certain users may use the tape backup facility. (Perhaps the administrator has concerns that unrestricted use might result in someone smuggling out a tape containing important information; but the precise reason does not matter for the purpose of explaining the functioning of the key distribution center.) Many operating systems can control access to the tape facility via a 'system service'. If that system service further restricts the tape drive to operate on behalf only of users who can submit a service-granting ticket when they wish to use it, there remains only the task of distributing such tickets to the appropriately permitted users. If the ticket consists of (or includes) a key, we can then term the mechanism which distributes it a KDC. Usually, in such situations, the KDC itself also operates as a system service.