The omni-channel environment further complicates the picture because as organizations pursue a multi-cloud strategy (for leveraging capabilities of different CSPs), managing identity and access across diverse cloud environments is now one of their key concerns. IAM solutions are traditionally quite poor at scale or multi-cloud integration. To tackle these and other obstacles, myriad organizations use OpenID Connect (OIDC) with OAuth 2.0 to make the process of identity management and access control more efficient and secure, multi-cloud environments a core tenet using OIDC/OAuth for authentication..

In this post we will elaborate on how you can leverage the combination of OpenID Connect and OAuth 2.0 to securely handle multi-cloud identity and access, its advantages as well as some implementation best practices.

The Problem with Multi-Cloud Identity and Access Management

When working in a Multi-Cloud environment, companies use services from different vendors such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and so on. At this point, each of these platforms have their own native identity and access management solutions cause several issues:

• Complexity :Managing several IAM systems increases operational complexities and administrative overhead.
• Security Risks: Each cloud could potentially have differing policies that do not conform so this scenario is full of security holes.
• User Experience Issue: If customers try to consume resources across clouds, they would experience friction around identity and access management due to the differing authentication & authorization mechanisms.
• Scalability : As organizations grow and add more cloud services, managing identities and permissions across multiple clouds becomes increasingly complicated.

Federated identity protocols like OpenID Connect and OAuth 2.0 can enable organizations to have centralized control over their identities, enforce consistent access policies globally across all cloud environments while providing seamless user experience integrated seamlessly with cloud services.

What is OpenID Connect and OAuth 2.0?

What is OpenID Connect?

Identity Layer on top of OAuth 2.0 protocol This is done in order to permit clients (e.g., cloud applications) to authenticate end-users based on the authentication performed by an authorization server. OIDC builds upon OAuth 2.0 by adding standardized identity attributes which make it a pragmatic tool for orchestrating user identities in distributed systems.

•  OIDC returns an auth token which can be used as access tokens and authenticates the user in to a 3rd party identity provider (IdP) where you will get basic profile info such as name, email, etc.
• Singles Sign-On (SSO): With OIDC, you can have SSO features in various services to log into the system and application only once.

What is OAuth 2.0?

OAuth 2.0 is an delegation authorization protocol for REST/Web APIs, a means by which one service or application can call another on behalf of the user without exposing his password. Since the OAuth 2.0 protocol and our library support secure access delegation, it solves many problems for multi-cloud environments that require accessing various services and resources by different applications.

• OAuth 2.0 Authorization: OAuth 2.0 is a protocol that allows applications to request access only user-specified permission (like APIs data) and leaves when not any without them, by using an Access Token gonted by authorization server
• Access Tokens: In OAuth 2.0, an access token is used as a permit to authorize particular operations performed by the client i.e.a device or web browser on behalf of server whereas security Identity and login credentials are not shared during this authorization process.

Why Use OpenID Connect and OAuth for Multi-Cloud?

1. Centralized identity and access control

Therefore, OIDC and OAuth 2.0 enable an organization with the use of common identity layer to decentralize from it for purpose of maintaining secure fine-grained access controls across a large number more different clouds in practice. Rather than having to manage unique user accounts and permissions in each cloud, a single identity provider (e.g., Azure Active Directory, Google Identity or Okta) can authenticate users and control access across clouds.

• The users log on once to authenticate using a single identity provider and thereby can access resources from different clouds without re-authentication (single Sign-On SSO).
• Federation: Identities of users in other domains (eg partners, subsidiaries) can be shared with the cloud service so that these identities are trusted by organizations using multiple clouds and they get access to required resources as necessary without having separate accounts on each cloud.

2. Scalable & Flexible Access Control

OAuth 2.0 Provides Token-Based Access Control Across Multi-Cloud Systems Instead of allowing direct access to cloud resources one can utilize OAuth tokens which, based on their scope can grant set permissions for each resource.

• Fine-Grained Access Control: OAuth 2.0 allows the provision of access tokens that carry scopes to specify what parts of resources a consumer (either user or application) are allowed to get an access for, read-only permissions vs write-all types etc.,
• Dynamic Permissions: Access tokens can be generated on the fly, scoped to allow users only required permissions for specific tasks or applications

3. Security

Finally, OIDC and OAuth are much more secure in a multi-cloud environment since they enable the distinction between resource owners (the user of your application) from client applications that can represent scenarios where no credentials have to be shared directly among apps or services. Token-based access model of OAuth 2.0 makes sure in case one cloud service is compromised the attacker will not be able to get hands on other services without a valid access token.

• Using short-lived tokens: OAuth2 uses short-lived tokens, so the possibility of unauthorized access decrease (but still exist).
• Fine-Grained Access Token Control — In fact, the tokens can be scoped so that they are only able to do certain actions or work with a variety of services lowering the attack surface and reducing dedicated damages when there is a security breach.

4. Standards & Interoperability

OpenID Connect and OAuth 2.0 have exploded in popularity as industry standards are supported by many of the major cloud platforms and IDaaS solutions It enables organizations to adopt common identity and access management strategy across multiple clouds, eliminating vendor lock-in.

• Vendor-Neutral: OIDC and OAuth 2.0 are both protocols, not vendor-specific solutions with API blueprints working across platforms as well as providers where an Identity Provider is common between clouds.
• Interoperability: These standards help to make sure that your applications and services can interoperate with various cloud environments, which greatly enhances the way of operational efficiency.

Implementing Multi-Cloud Identity and Access Management with OpenID Connect and OAuth

Here are steps to follow for implementing multi-cloud identity and access management with OIDC, OAuth.

Step 1 : Choose an Identity Provider

Start off by selecting a core identity provider to work with OIDC and OAuth 2.0. Here are some popular identity providers:

• Azure Active Directory (AAD): OIDC and OAuth 2.0 support to provide federated identity- and access management across clouds as well on-premise landscape
• Google Identity : a powerful and flexible IdP that works with Google Cloud, as well as supports OIDC / OAuth 2.0logging in Git Rebase
• Okta : An third party idnetity management platform that is multi-cloud capable.
• Amazon Cognito : a cloud-native IdP that offers OIDC and OAuth 2.0-based Authentication & Authorization for other AWS services

Choose an IdP that works with your multi-cloud strategy and integrates effectively into the services of your cloud providers.

Step 2: Identity Federation Configuration

After you select an IdP, configure identity federation between the IdPs and each cloud platform. It allows Single Sign-On (SSO) for users over cloud services.

• Secondary level (Federating users with AWS): Use the chosen IdP to federate logins freeing up access to selected AWS resources securely using this federation approach.
• With Azure: Federating to allow external users acccess into the realm of azure resources using AAD B2C or AAD B 2nd step
• Federation with GCP : Utilize Google Identity Federation to provide seamless authentication & access control for users from other domains.

Identity Federation allows you to sign in once and access the resources in AWS, Azure, GCP or other Cloud platforms without any need for multiple credentials.

Step 3 :Authorize Further with OAuth 2.0

Manage access to cloud resources Using OAuth 2.0 (using tokens) These are the tokens used to authorize people or applications to do something in your cloud environments.

• Access Tokens: OAuth 2.0 tokens are the issued after authentication of user and contains information about access permissions (e.g., read, write) and target resources.
• Scopes and Roles : Establish the right scopes for every cloud resource. An example can be a token having read-only access to Google Cloud storage bucket and full permissions on an AWS S3 bucket.

Set up OAuth scopes with each application and cloud service to restrict the resources they can access for a specific user.

Step 4: Token Management Automated

However, to work seamlessly and securely access tokens must also be automated across multiple clouds.

• Automatic Token Expiration and Renewal: Again, security is a huge concern  the key here being automation. Many identity providers will automatically update tokens based on user sessions
• Revocation Policies: Deploy Revocation policies for every token that the users get when accessing multiple entities or an entity (such as access tokens) shown in Figure 6. if a user does not require any further operations, revoke their credentials given to them[iii]. Revocation mechanisms make sure that access is rapidly removed when it should be.

Automation decreases the risk of token-based security vulnerabilities and ensures uniform access control across clouds.

Step 5: Monitor and Audit

Keep an eye on identity and access activity in your multi-cloud environment to spot security threats.

• Logging: Logging is one of the most critical measures you should monitor access token usage and authentication events via a centralized logging/monitoring tools (e.g., Azure Monitor, AWS CloudTrail, GCP Operations Suite).
• Audit Trails: Maintain detailed records of user authentication and authorization events in centralized audit logs to meet industry standards regarding accessibility, as well as security.

Regularly audit access logs to identify unusual activity and hopefully prevent unauthorized access.

Best Practices for Multi-Cloud Identity and Access Management

For an efficient management of multi-cloud identity and access based on OpenID Connect & OAuth, it is advised to do your following homework:

1. Enforce Strong Authentication

Employ multi-factor authentication (MFA) to secure user accounts in all clouds MFA: With OIDC, MFA can be enforced at the time of authenticating an authenticator.

2. Apply the Least Privilege Principle

Follow the principle of least privilege in an effort to controling access to cloud based resources, giving only those permissions that they need.

3. Utilize Role-Based Access Control (RBAC):

Use OAuth 2.0 and Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) to place users into managed roles with corresponding permission sets, centralizing access control across various clouds.

4. Secure Tokens

Securely Store Access Tokens: Use a secure storage mechanisms such as AWS Secrets Manager or Azure Key Vault, and transport them over TLS.

Conclusion

The complexity of managing identity and access across multiple clouds is a challenge, but OpenID Connect and OAuth 2.0 provide robust methods for simplifying it while protecting security297.) Using OpenID Connect for user authentication and OAuth to provide delegated access, companies can enhance identity management in one place and facilitate across-the-board security while delivering a better experience or their users through cloud platforms.

By following this standard for multi-cloud IAM businesses can ensure that they continue to scale effectively while also securing access with strong security and making sure it is status quo operation even in the world of multi cloud.