Introduction

This guide explains how OAuth scopes secure your app permissions. OAuth scopes play a very important role in any application on the web. It is responsible for what an application can access and what data can be stored within the application. OAuth 2.0 scopes define the permission for an app to read emails, read and modify files and manage login data for users. Using scopes correctly will protect application user’s sensitive information, maintain their trust and provide security. This blog explains about OAuth 2.0 scopes and the best practices for managing permissions using OAuth scopes.

What are OAuth Scopes?

OAuth scopes are the permissions an application requests when it wants to access a user's Google account data. There will be multiple scopes that define what the app is allowed to do like reading email, managing calendar events and accessing Google Drive files. To do any of the operations the application needs prior permission.

OAuth scopes has the following scopes - 

  1. Read-only scopes - This provides only read permissions. The app can only view the data.
  2. Read-write scopes - This allows applications to view and modify the user data.
  3. Full-access scopes - This provides complete access to a service to perform any related tasks.
  4. Sensitive & Restricted scopes - These scopes involve access to sensitive data and therefore come with additional restrictions.

Understanding of OAuth 2.0

OAuth 2.0 is an industry-standard authorization framework used to securely grant third-party apps limited access to a user’s data without sharing passwords. It is widely used across Google Workspace, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Facebook, GitHub and other major platforms.

OAuth Scopes Best Practices

  1. You have to always follow the principle of least privilege. It means request only the required scope for your app. This reduces security risk and protects user data.
  2. Always avoid using wide-access scopes like /auth/drive unless necessary. Prefer narrow scopes such as /auth/drive.file or /auth/docs.
  3. Request for Sensitive & Restricted Scopes only when your app truly needs the access to private or critical user data. These scopes require Google verification from users.
  4. Let users clearly know why the app is requesting a specific scope. Transparency is a must to gain user trust.
  5. Regularly check for the apps which have OAuth access and revoke them if they are unsafe or unnecessary from the Google Admin Console.
  6. OAuth tokens are as important as passwords. Make sure you store them securely and you can make use of environment variables and encryption methods.
  7. Keep refreshing old tokens. It is a necessary step when users leave the organization or process change occurs.
  8. Avoid Domain-Wide Delegation (DWD) for all the applications. Enable DWD only for trusted internal applications with limited scopes.
  9. Always test scopes before the final deployment. Test with minimum scopes and remove any unnecessary permissions before publishing.

Conclusion

We can conclude that OAuth scopes are essential for keeping your user data secure and building trust in your application. Follow the best practices given in this article for setting restricted scopes, auditing third-party access and making user’s data secure with tokens. You can make sure your app stays safe with user’s data and manage permissions responsibly.

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