HTTP Basic Authentication: How it works?

HTTP Basic Authentication comes into the picture in the context where the traditional cookie/session based authentication is no longer sufficient. This insufficiency detected when the RESTful web services are becoming popular and when it comes to secure those REST endpoints.

Traditional form based authentication or cookie based authentication is not sufficient when it comes to secure REST Api(s). This is because  form based authentication / cookie based authentication is most suitable for human interacted web browser based applications.