Design authorization policies
Use least privilege, roles, attributes, and explicit deny-by-default decisions.
- Compare RBAC and ABAC and make authorization checks specific to actions and resources.
Role-based access control (RBAC) assigns permissions to roles and identities to roles. Attribute-based access control (ABAC) evaluates attributes about the identity, resource, action, and context. Both can be useful, and systems often combine policy approaches. Start with least privilege, deny by default, and check access at the service that owns the resource rather than trusting a user interface to enforce it.
A small example
1role = "reader"
2action = "read_report"
3allowed = role == "reader" and action == "read_report"
4print("allow" if allowed else "deny")allow
Authorization policy should be understandable, testable, and applied consistently. Check the requested action against the specific resource and current identity context. Avoid overbroad wildcard grants, stale role membership, and relying on client-supplied attributes without verification.
Key takeaways
Compare RBAC and ABAC and make authorization checks specific to actions and resources.
Treat access as a lifecycle: grant deliberately, review regularly, and revoke promptly.
Lesson quiz
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