Stop Using JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) for Authorization! by Sohan Maheshwar

Sohan Maheshwar explains the technical and security limitations of using JSON Web Tokens for authorization in distributed systems.

Please subscribe to our YouTube channel @ youtube.com/@DevoxxForever Subscribe to LinkedIn @ linkedin.com/company/voxxed-days-amsterdam Follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/voxxedamsterdam JWTs (JSON Web Tokens) are everywhere—frontends, backends, microservices—and for good reason: they're easy to pass around, self-contained, and standardized. But while JWTs can be a solid fit for authentication, using them for authorization is a decision that comes with serious pitfalls—especially in distributed systems. In this lightning talk, we’ll explore the technical and security limitations of JWT-based authorization and explain why they're fundamentally incompatible with the needs of modern applications. From the infamous "New Enemy Problem" described in Google’s Zanzibar paper to the vague semantics of scope claims and the difficulty of revoking tokens in-flight, we’ll unpack the real-world consequences of treating JWTs as your AuthZ layer.