About LDAP

The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) allows you to set up a directory on your network that organizes objects, such as user credentials, in a centralized location. Multiple applications can then access those credentials and the information used to describe them. If you ever need to change a user's credentials, you can change them in one place.

Microsoft has announced that Active Directory servers will start enforcing LDAP binding and LDAP signing in 2020. Microsoft is making these a requirement because when using default settings, an elevation of privilege vulnerability exists in Microsoft Windows that could allow a man-in-the-middle attacker to successfully forward an authentication request to a Windows LDAP server. For more information, see 2020 LDAP channel binding and LDAP signing requirement for Windows on the Microsoft support site.

If you have not done so already, we recommend you start using TLS/SSL encryption to authenticate with an Active Directory server.