REST APIs have become the building blocks of all enterprise business applications over the last few years. There have been significant improvements for these components to make them more convenient to implement, manage, and maintain. Authentication and authorization have been the key element controlling these REST APIs. However, with the advancement of business use-cases, they are used to address modern business problems.

Spending two decades in the middleware field has given me deep insight into the evolution of this technology domain. I began my career as a software engineer in a platform group, building reusable components using technologies like object linking and embedding (OLE), the distributed component object model (DCOM) and common object request broker architecture (CORBA).

Since October is cybersecurity awareness month, it’s a great time to revisit the question of what are the best ways to secure user authentication in CIAM. In many industries (finance and healthcare, to name a few), regulations require the use of multifactor authentication (MFA) to protect access to sensitive data and transactions.

WSO2 recently announced the release of their Private CIAM Cloud service, and it made me think about the changing role of personal identity versus business entity in today’s complex distributed software environments. The CIAM space has evolved far beyond the traditional end user’s need for identity and access to applications in a B2C (business to customer) scenario.

Today, the exponential growth of APIs shows no sign of slowing down. Digitally driven enterprises understand that they must deliver enhanced digital experiences to achieve sustained growth, faster innovation, and meet modern consumer needs.