CIAM with AWS Cognito

TL;DR You started your cloud journey with AWS and you need to authenticate your first customers, partners. You don’t want to build your own authentication service - you want to use a managed service. AWS Cognito is a great solution for you. It is easy to start with, cheap, and easy to integrate with the frontend and backend. You can start with a sample solution from AWS and workshop....

June 9, 2024 · Mateusz Jendza

Entra External ID for Customers - Native Authentication part 1

TL;DR With Azure AD B2C we can authenticate users via a browser-based feature - we run the OpenID Connect flow in the browser, authenticate the user via the Authorization Code flow, and get the token. But what if we want to stay with the mobile application? On the Desktop application? With Entra External ID we can use the native authentication flow. PS> Native Authentication is in preview mode - it is not for production use!...

June 2, 2024 · Mateusz Jendza

Play with Authorization

TL;DR Authentication or authorization? What is the term I need to use with my current scope of work? Do I need to authenticate the user or authorize it? Ok! I need to authenticate the user and then authorize (or the opposite). Dictionary: Authentication - is the process of verifying the identity of a user. How can we do it? As a basic scenario, when only one person knows the combination of login and password, we need to check if the combination is correct to authenticate the user....

February 27, 2024 · Mateusz Jendza

Time for Passwordless

TL;DR Please stop using passwords. My stack is based on Yubikey and 1Password. Can I be a passwordless team member? Check my journey and answer the question. I improved my security with the following steps: Entra ID accounts without password, extended security on GitHub with GPG key, moved the SSH keys to 1Password, started using 1Password CLI to access secrets for ServicePrincipals. Big Picture Yubikey I started my journey with Blue Yubikey....

February 13, 2024 · Mateusz Jendza

Protect your Azure resources

TL;DR You decided to build a web application in Azure - great! The solution contains App Service, CosmosDB, Blob Storage or other resouces. You started with really simple solution, but as IT Pro you decided to build three environments: Development, Test, and Production. You also decided to use Azure API Management to manage your APIs. You are aware of the security risks and you want to protect your resources. Please fallow my suggestion to use Azure FrontDoor and API Management to protect your resources....

February 6, 2024 · Mateusz Jendza