Token Encoding Security: How JWT, PASETO, and Session Tokens Use Encoding
Tokens rely on encoding for transport but signing for security. Learn how JWT uses Base64URL, why the signature matters, and how PASETO improves on JWT.
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Tags: security, encoding, tokens
Token Encoding Security: How JWT, PASETO, and Session Tokens Use Encoding Tokens are everywhere in modern authentication. Every time you log into a web application, receive an OAuth access token, or make an authenticated API call, a token is involved. Understanding how encoding and cryptography interact in token design reveals why some token schemes are robust and others have critical weaknesses. The Attack This is one of the most famous JWT vulnerabilities, and it stems directly from the fact that the algorithm is specified in the header that the client controls. The JWT spec originally allowed to mean "no signature required." An attacker could: Take a legitimate JWT Decode the header, change to , re-encode it Decode the payload, change to an admin user ID, re-encode it Drop the…
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