Book Image

Azure Active Directory for Secure Application Development

By : Sjoukje Zaal
Book Image

Azure Active Directory for Secure Application Development

By: Sjoukje Zaal

Overview of this book

Azure Active Directory for Secure Application Development is your one-stop shop for learning how to develop secure applications using modern authentication techniques with Microsoft Azure AD. Whether you’re working with single-tenant, multi-tenant, or line-of-business applications, this book contains everything you need to secure them. The book wastes no time in diving into the practicalities of Azure AD. Right from the start, you’ll be setting up tenants, adding users, and registering your first application in Azure AD. The balance between grasping and applying theory is maintained as you move from the intermediate to the advanced: from the basics of OAuth to getting your hands dirty with building applications and registering them in Azure AD. Want to pin down the Microsoft Graph, Azure AD B2C, or authentication protocol best practices? We’ve got you covered. The full range of Azure AD functionality from a developer perspective is here for you to explore with confidence. By the end of this secure app development book, you’ll have developed the skill set that so many organizations are clamoring for. Security is mission-critical, and after reading this book, you will be too.
Table of Contents (14 chapters)
1
Part 1: Getting Started with the Microsoft Identity Platform
5
Part 2: Authentication and Protocols
9
Part 3: Azure AD B2C

Understanding certificates and secrets

There are two types of authentications available for applications inside Azure AD: application secrets and certificate-based authentication. You need the secret or the certificate to get access to the app registration from your application. Certificate-based authentication is recommended by Microsoft, but for our demonstration, an app secret will do.

In the next demonstration, we are going to configure an app secret.

Configuring an app secret in the Azure portal

In this demonstration, we are going to configure an app secret in the Azure portal. To configure an app secret, we need to take the following steps:

  1. From the app registration overview page of the registered application, under Manage, select Certificates & secrets.
  2. Here, you can upload a certificate or you can configure an app secret. Under Client secrets, click + New client secret:

Figure 2.13 – Certificates and secrets

    ...