Preface

Every organization needs protection against cyberattacks and security threats. Cybercrime and malware are constant threats to anyone with an internet presence. Security is one of the most important topics in IT projects nowadays and every developer, architect, and IT professional needs to have some knowledge of it. It is also one of the key elements that spans across every layer in your IT landscape. It needs to be embedded in your infrastructure, data, and applications, among others. That is also the case for cloud environments, such as Microsoft Azure.

This results in Azure Active Directory being the core service inside Azure that ties everything together from an identity and security perspective. The Microsoft identity platform is an authentication service and a layer on top of Azure Active Directory, which provides developers with an authentication service, open source libraries, and application management tools.

Azure Active Directory for Secure Application Development is an in-depth exploration of how Azure Active Directory and the Microsoft identity platform can be used to secure custom applications that run in Azure and other environments. Although the protocols and pattern descriptions that are also described in this book are applicable to other platforms, the focus in this book is on how to use Azure Active Directory, the Microsoft identity platform, and the OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, and MSAL components to secure your applications. It also covers how Azure AD Business to Consumer (B2C) provides support for securing your consumer-facing applications.

The book provides lots of hands-on and practical demos that you can use as a reference for your own applications. Although the platform evolves rapidly, and new services are added to it frequently, lots of the basics that are described in this book will be applicable for future scenarios as well.

Who this book is for

If you are a developer or architect who has basic knowledge of Azure Active Directory and are looking to gain greater expertise in the application security domain, this is the book for you. In order to learn from this book, you should have knowledge of building web applications and web APIs in C#, and basic Azure knowledge.