The Kerberos model is based in part on Needham and Schroeder's trusted third-party authentication protocol and on modifications suggested by Denning and Sacco. The original design and implementation of Kerberos Versions 1 through 4 was the work of Steve Miller of the former Digital Equipment Corporation (now Hewlett-Packard Company) and Clifford Neuman (now at the Information Sciences Institute of the University of Southern California), along with Jerome Saltzer, Technical Director of Project Athena, and Jeffrey Schiller, MIT Campus Network Manager. Many other members of Project Athena have also contributed to the work on Kerberos. Version 4 is publicly available, and has seen wide use across the Internet.

Version 5 (described in this document) has evolved from Version 4 based on new requirements and desires for features not available in Version 4.