Kerberos Limitations

As with coins, which have two sides, Kerberos also has its advantages and disadvantages. Because the remainder of this chapter deals with the brighter side of Kerberos, let’s briefly take a look at its limitations:

  • Kerberos is a centralized (as compared to distributed) system. It requires a secure server that should be available around the clock. Otherwise, Kerberos clients will not be able to use authentication services. If the Kerberos server is compromised, all information stored there is also compromised, resulting in a domino effect.

  • System software and some applications should be modified (“Kerberized”) to support Kerberos. In certain cases, this is impossible (for example, when the used system is not open source and ...

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