The firewall wasn’t enough. The network perimeter was gone. And now, every request to your application must prove who it is—before a single byte is allowed through.
Identity-Aware Proxy with OpenID Connect (OIDC) is the direct answer to this challenge. It sits between users and your service, authenticating and authorizing each request based on identity, not location or network. Instead of trusting an IP range or a VPN session, it trusts the signed claims in an OIDC token.
An Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP) intercepts the request, checks the identity against your configured OpenID Connect provider, and passes only verified traffic downstream. Tokens are issued through the OIDC standard, using OAuth 2.0 flows like Authorization Code or Client Credentials. Every token contains claims—such as sub for user ID, exp for expiration, and custom roles—that the proxy can enforce.
This architecture eliminates implicit trust. Applications never see unauthenticated requests. Session management, refresh tokens, and continuous validation happen within the proxy layer. Failures are rejected early, reducing the attack surface. With an OIDC-backed IAP, you gain centralized authentication across all services, manageable via standard protocols and provider APIs.