Category: Amazon Cognito

Recently, passwordless authentication has gained popularity compared to traditional password-based authentication methods. Application owners can add user management to their applications while offloading most of the security heavy-lifting to Amazon Cognito. You can use Amazon Cognito to customize user authentication flow by implementing passwordless authentication. Amazon Cognito enhances the security posture of your applications because […]

Amazon Web Services (AWS) recently released AWS IAM Identity Center trusted identity propagation to create identity-enhanced IAM role sessions when requesting access to AWS services as well as to trusted token issuers. These two features can help customers build custom applications on top of AWS, which requires fine-grained access to data analytics-focused AWS services such […]

Externalized authorization for custom applications is a security approach where access control decisions are managed outside of the application logic. Instead of embedding authorization rules within the application’s code, these rules are defined as policies, which are evaluated by a separate system to make an authorization decision. This separation enhances an application’s security posture by […]

Dec 16, 2024: We’ve updated this post to reflect changes in suggested mitigation approaches. If you have a customer facing application, you might want to enable self-service sign-up, which allows potential customers on the internet to create an account and gain access to your applications. While it’s necessary to allow valid users to sign up […]

Amazon Cognito is a customer identity and access management (CIAM) service that can scale to millions of users. Although the Cognito documentation details which multi-tenancy models are available, determining when to use each model can sometimes be challenging. In this blog post, we’ll provide guidance on when to use each model and review their pros […]

When an identity provider (IdP) serves multiple service providers (SPs), IdP-initiated single sign-on provides a consistent sign-in experience that allows users to start the authentication process from one centralized portal or dashboard. It helps administrators have more control over the authentication process and simplifies the management. However, when you support IdP-initiated authentication, the SP (Amazon […]

While traditional channels like email and SMS remain important, businesses are increasingly exploring alternative messaging services to reach their customers more effectively. In recent years, WhatsApp has emerged as a simple and effective way to engage with users. According to statista, as of 2024, WhatsApp is the most popular mobile messenger app worldwide and has […]

August 9, 2024: This post has been updated to reflect a new feature in Amazon Verified Permissions that supports OpenID Connect (OIDC) compliant identity providers as identity source Externalizing authorization logic for application APIs can yield multiple benefits for Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers. These benefits can include freeing up development teams to focus on […]

For businesses, particularly those in highly regulated industries, managing user accounts isn’t just a matter of security but also a compliance necessity. In sectors such as finance, healthcare, and government, where regulations often mandate strict control over user access, disabling stale user accounts is a key compliance activity. In this post, we show you a […]

Implementing authentication and authorization mechanisms in modern applications can be challenging, especially when dealing with various client types and use cases. As developers, we often struggle to choose the right authentication flow to balance security, user experience, and application requirements. This is where understanding the OAuth 2.0 grant types comes into play. Whether you’re building […]