NestJS Authentication Overview

Authentication is the first line of defense against unauthorized access. It ensures that only legitimate users or services can interact with a system or access its resources, thereby protecting sensitive data and functionality from unauthorized access.

In this lesson, we’ll provide an overview of authentication and how it’s implemented in NestJS.

Understanding authentication

Authentication is the process of verifying the identity of a user, system, or entity in order to ensure that they are who they claim to be before granting them access to a specific resource or service. It’s like presenting a valid ticket before boarding a plane.

A very commonly used authentication is username and password authentication. Consider a scenario where we have a personal email account.