Represents a user or team. It is essentially an object that can be assigned a business object for ownership.

An entity recognized by the security system. Principals can include human users as well as autonomous processes.

An account-holder, such as a user, computer, or service. Each security principal within a Windows 2000 domain is identified by a unique security ID (SID). When a security principal logs on to a computer running Windows 2000, the Local Security Authority (LSA) authenticates the security principal's account name and password. If the logon is successful, the system creates an access token. Every process executed on behalf of this security principal will have a copy of its access token. See also access token; security ID; security principal name.

an entity that can be positively identified and verified via a technique known as authentication ( WhatIsAuthentication )

an object to which Windows security is applied in the form of authentication and authorization