JWTs Aren’t Made for Authorization

JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) have become popular among developers for their compact size, URL-safe format, and ability to facilitate stateless user identity verification, making them ideal for authentication scenarios. However, the misconception that JWTs can be used for authorization has led to potential security vulnerabilities, as JWTs are not designed for fine-grained permission checks or dynamic role management. While they can convey user identity and claims efficiently in stateless, distributed systems, relying solely on JWTs for authorization can result in outdated permissions and static authorization layers, as they lack a revocation mechanism and are limited in data capacity. Instead, JWTs should be used to verify identities and exchange tokens, while authorization should be managed through external services that can handle complex access control models like Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) or Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC), ensuring a secure and scalable authorization framework.

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