Explained Web Authorization Techniques - Session & JWT

The client sends a username & password to the server. The server validates credentials against existing credentials stored in the DB

On successful authentication server generates a unique session ID (signed) and stores session_id on the server.

The server sends back session_id which will be set as part of a cookie in the browser.

HTTP OK 200 set-cookie

All subsequent HTTP calls include session_id and request as part of the COOKIE request header.

The server validates session_id as part of the cookie against the stored cookie if valid then authorize the user to process that HTTP request.

Prone to CSRF attacks - Session-based authentications are prone to CSRF attacks. This can be prevented by using the X-CSRF-Token header.

Access cookie by client-side application - Cookies can be accessed by any client-side application that can use the Cookie details to create a new session programmatically.
💡Solution - Cookies can be secured using HTTP-Only, same-origin options along with a Set-Cookie header so that it can't be accessible through JavaScript code.

The client sends a username & password to the server. The server validates credentials against existing credentials stored in the DB.

On successful authentication server generates a unique JWT Token, which contains data(payload) related to the user and signs that token.

This Token is sent back to the user as part of a successful HTTP response with the Authentication HTTP header

HTTP 200 OK Authentication: Bearer [Token]

Users save this token in a cookie or local storage

The user sends this token along with API requests in subsequent requests as part of the Authentication header.

The server validates the JWT token by decoding information from the JWT token. If the token is valid then the server authenticates that token and processes the API request.

Secret must be shared between servers so that the server can extract the user details.

In case of invalid Tokens(forgot password), requires a list of invalid tokens which makes a more sort of stateful kind.

Token-based authentications are prone to XSS attacks.

The token is not opaque and contains payload information, and this can be extracted from the token.

No sensitive information can be mentioned as part of the payload.

The generation of a new signature is essential a frequent intervals to avoid Resource Forgery attacks