What is OAuth and It's Importance in a Secure Web

OAuth is an open standard for authorization, enabling secure, delegated access to user resources by third-party applications without exposing user credentials. It differentiates between authentication, which verifies user identity, and authorization, which determines access permissions. OAuth 2.0, a complete rewrite of the earlier version, addresses previous challenges and supports a variety of platforms, including mobile devices and IoT. Key components include scopes, actors, and tokens, with access tokens granting temporary resource access and refresh tokens allowing new access tokens without reauthorization. Implementation flows vary, with the Authorization Code Flow being the most secure. OAuth faces challenges like insecure token storage and redirect URI manipulation, which require mitigation strategies. OAuth 2.1 aims to enhance security by incorporating best practices while maintaining much of the OAuth 2.0 framework, although a new protocol is being developed to address future needs without backward compatibility.