Described herein are various aspects pertaining to a web ticket that is used in connection with authenticating a user. The web ticket is generated through use of a symmetric key, and is less than two hundred bytes in size. A ticket issuer executing on a first computing device generates the web ticket responsive to receiving authentication data from a client computing device, and transmits the web ticket to such client computing device. The client computing device includes the web ticket in requests for data transmitted to a second server computing device that is in communication with the ticket issuer. The second server computing device includes a validator that validates the web ticket using the symmetric key, which is shared between the first server and the second server.