Embodiments of the present invention disclose an identity authentication method and apparatus. The NFV system includes a VNF including a first virtual network function component VNFC and a second VNFC. The method includes: generating a public key and a private key of the first VNFC and a public key and a private key of the second VNFC; writing or sending the private key of the first VNFC and the public key of the second VNFC to the first VNFC; and writing or sending the public key of the first VNFC and the private key of the second VNFC to the second VNFC, where the public key and the private key of the first VNFC and the public key and the private key of the second VNFC are used for identity authentication of the first VNFC and the second VNFC.