Today, applications are built around identity systems. All API gateways, microservices, mobile backends, and single sign-on flows require some form of authentication and authorization. That trust is often conveyed via a JSON Web Token (JWT) in many systems.
Their compactness, portability, and ability to be easily verified within distributed systems make them popular. A service can accept a token, validate its signature, verify the claims of the token (expiration, audience, subject, and issuer), and determine if the request should be accepted.
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