How to Configure SNMPv3

SNMPv3 provides both authentication and encryption (privacy) which addresses the security issues in SNMP v2/3 (No Authentication and Confidentiality) implementation which was only based on community names.
with SNMP v3 it is now possible to create username/password and define which MIBs is the user allowed to view and all these can also be encrypted.
This is a good resource to get a quick view on how to configure Cisco and Net-SNMP for SNMPv3:
Configuring SNMPv3
If you are intrested to know more about SNMP this is a thorough resource which many documents are referring to as a technology reference:
Essential SNMP, Second Edition