HTTP 401 Unauthorized indicates which condition?

• A. Not Found
• B. Unauthorized - Authorization credentials are required or user does not have access to the resource/method they are requesting.
• C. Forbidden
• D. Bad Request

Answer: (B)

HTTP 401 Unauthorized means authentication is required or the credentials provided are invalid. The server is signaling that you must present valid authentication credentials (often indicated with a WWW-Authenticate header describing the required scheme, like Bearer or Basic). This status is used when the request lacks proper authentication or the supplied credentials aren’t acceptable, so access can’t be granted until valid credentials are provided. This differs from a 403 Forbidden, where you’re already authenticated but don’t have permission to access the resource, and from 404 Not Found (the resource doesn’t exist) or 400 Bad Request (the request itself has a syntax or structural problem).