Understanding the Microsoft Identity Platform

Nowadays, there are open standards such as OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect (OIDC) to help with handling user authentication and authorization, but even these have many complexities, especially when considering more than just a username and password, such as multi-factor authentication, conditional access, and passwordless sign-in. The Microsoft identity platform provides several tools to help developers implement user authentication and authorization and does the heavy lifting for you.

The Microsoft identity platform was first used in this book when you enabled authentication in Chapter 2, Implementing Azure App Service Web Apps. As you saw in that chapter, the Microsoft identity platform helps in the development of applications that users can sign in to with their Microsoft work or school accounts, personal Microsoft accounts, as well as social or local accounts.

The Microsoft identity platform is built on top of the open standards...