.NET 8, a planned upgrade to Microsoft’s cross-platform, open source development platform, is set to improve identity management, authentication, and authorization thanks to enhancements in the security vein delivered by the ASP.NET Core team.
Identity features in .NET 8 are positioned to make it easier to secure applications. Developers can add authentication and authorization to an application with a few lines of code, according to a Microsoft bulletin on November 3. New APIs make it possible to secure web API endpoints with cookie-based authentication and authorization. Also featured is a token-based option for clients that cannot use cookies.
Now in a release candidate (RC) stage and expected as a production release later this month, .NET 8 specifically will feature APIs to simplify identity management and login for client applications such as single-page apps (SPA) and the Blazor WebAssembly SPA framework. It also will enable token-based authentication and authorization in ASP.NET Core Identity for clients unable to use cookies. ASP.Net Core is a framework for building cloud-enabled, Internet-connected applications. A new identity UI for Blazor web apps, meanwhile, will work with server and WebAssembly rendering modes. Also part of the ASP.Net Core team’s contribution is improved documentation for discovering and implementing identity management solutions.
Identity management is among a host of improvements eyed for .NET 8, with enhancements planned for .NET technologies ranging from better performance in .NET MAUI (Multi-platform App UI) to garbage collection capabilities to adjust the memory limit on the fly. The current .NET 8 RC can be downloaded for Windows, Linux, or macOS at dotnet.microsoft.com.