Systems Security Certified Practitioner – SSCP – Question0157 - Systems Security Certified Practitioner

Which of the following statements pertaining to Kerberos is false?

A. The Key Distribution Center represents a single point of failure.
B. Kerberos manages access permissions.
C. Kerberos uses a database to keep a copy of all users' public keys.
D. Kerberos uses symmetric key cryptography.

Correct Answer: C

Explanation:

Kerberos is a trusted, credential-based, third-party authentication protocol that uses symmetric (secret) key cryptography to provide robust authentication to clients accessing services on a network.
One weakness of Kerberos is its Key Distribution Center (KDC), which represents a single point of failure. The KDC contains a database that holds a copy of all of the symmetric/secret keys for the principals.
Reference(s) used for this question: KRUTZ, Ronald L. & VINES, Russel D., The CISSP Prep Guide: Mastering the Ten Domains of Computer Security, John Wiley & Sons, 2001, Chapter 2: Access control systems (page40).