Web Service Security

Abstract

The high adoption in daily lives of services offered by the Web 2.0 has opened a wide field for the proliferation of new Web-based services and applications. Social networks, as the main exponent of this new generation of services, require security systems to ensure end user authentication and access control to shared information. Another feature that is becoming increasingly important in these scenarios is the delegation of controlled access between the different API (Application Programming Interfaces) to integrate services and information. The safe use of these Web services requires end user security credentials and different authentication and authorization technologies. This chapter provides an introduction to the most relevant protocols and standards in the area of Web service security, which are able to provide authentication and authorization mechanisms.