What is the difference between authentication and authorization in Spring Security?

Separates proving an identity from deciding whether that identity may perform a specific action on a resource.

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TL;DR

Authentication verifies credentials or a token and produces an Authentication representing the caller. Authorization evaluates that authenticated identity, its authorities, the requested operation, and often the target resource to decide whether access is allowed. Spring Security can authorize at the HTTP request and method boundaries. A valid login does not imply permission to every endpoint or every record.

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Identity verification, authorities, request and method rules, ownership, least privilege, and failure semantics.

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Authentication answers who or what is calling; authorization answers whether that caller may do this operation.
Authentication verifies credentials or a token and produces an Authentication representing the caller. Authorization evaluates that authenticated identity, its authorities, the requested operation, and often the target resource to decide whether access is allowed. Spring Security can authorize at the HTTP request and method boundaries. A valid login does not imply permission to every endpoint or every record.
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A role check may protect an administrative route, but resource ownership often needs current database state, such as whether this user may edit this order. I keep those rules server-side and default to least privilege. Authentication failures normally produce a challenge such as 401, while an authenticated caller lacking permission normally receives 403. The UI can hide actions for usability, but it is not the authorization boundary.

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Calling a logged-in user fully authorized.
Using UI visibility as enforcement.
Checking only broad roles for resource ownership.

What is the difference between authentication and authorization in Spring Security?

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