Free online courses on JWT Authentication

JWT authentication is a method of verifying users with a signed JSON Web Token that is sent with later requests.

After login, the server creates a signed token containing user claims. The client sends it back, typically in an Authorization header, to access protected routes.

A JWT has three Base64URL-encoded parts: a header, a payload, and a signature.

JWT can be secure when tokens are signed with strong keys, validated correctly, transmitted over HTTPS, and stored carefully.

For browser apps, secure, HttpOnly, SameSite cookies are often preferred to reduce exposure to cross-site scripting attacks.

Access tokens are short-lived credentials for API requests, while refresh tokens are used to obtain new access tokens after they expire.

A full-stack blog app course may teach JWT-based login, protected blog routes, user authorization, and authenticated API requests.