https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_Directory_Access_Protocol
LDAP, the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, is a mature, flexible, and well supported standards-based mechanism for interacting with directory servers. It’s often used for authentication and storing information about users, groups, and applications, but an LDAP directory server is a fairly general-purpose data store and can be used in a wide variety of applications.
The LDAP protocol can deal in quite a bit of sensitive data: Active Directory usernames, login attempts, failed-login notifications, and more. If attackers get ahold of that data in flight, they might be able to compromise data like legitimate AD credentials and use it to poke around your network in search of valuable assets.
Encrypting LDAP traffic in flight across the network can help prevent credential theft and other malicious activity, but it's not a failsafe—and if traffic is encrypted, your own team might miss the signs of an attempted attack in progress.
While LDAP encryption isn't standard, there is a nonstandard version of LDAP called Secure LDAP, also known as "LDAPS" or "LDAP over SSL" (SSL, or Secure Socket Layer, being the now-deprecated ancestor of Transport Layer Security).
LDAPS uses its own distinct network port to connect clients and servers. The default port for LDAP is port 389, but LDAPS uses port 636 and establishes TLS/SSL upon connecting with a client.
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