Identification, Authentication, Authorization, and Accountability (IAAA) are four key principles in information security used to control access to systems, applications, and data while ensuring proper monitoring and tracking of activities.

Together, these concepts form the foundation for secure access control and ensures that only authorized and authenticated users gain access to specific resources, while maintaining transparency and traceability of actions for security and compliance purposes.

Identification: The process of uniquely identifying a user or entity, often through a username, account number, or ID.

This step establishes who is trying to access a system or resource.

Authentication: Verifying the identity of the user or entity by validating credentials such as passwords, biometric data, or security tokens.

Authentication ensures that the person or system attempting to access a resource is truly who they claim to be.

Authorization: Once identified and authenticated, authorization determines what actions or resources the user is permitted to access.

This is often defined by roles or access control policies, ensuring that individuals only have access to the data and systems they need to perform their job.

Accountability: Ensuring that user actions can be traced back to the individual responsible.

This is achieved through logging, auditing, and monitoring, making sure that every action within the system is recorded and attributed to the correct user. Accountability helps detect and prevent misuse and enables investigation in case of security incidents.