Title
Authorizing Third-Party Applications Served Through Messaging Platforms
Abstract
The widespread adoption of smartphones and the new-generation wireless networks have changed the way that people interact among themselves and with their environment. The use of messaging platforms, such as WhatsApp, has become deeply ingrained in peoples' lives, and many digital services have started to be delivered using these communication channels. In this work, we propose a new OAuth grant type to be used when the interaction between the resource owner and the client takes place through a messaging platform. This new grant type firstly allows the authorization server to be sure that no Man-in-the-Middle risk exists between the resource owner and the client before issuing an access token. Secondly, it allows the authorization server to interact with the resource owner through the same user-agent already being used to interact with the client, i.e., the messaging platform, which is expected to improve the overall user experience of the authorization process. To verify this assumption, we conducted a usability study in which subjects were required to perform the full authorization process using both the standard authorization code grant type (through a web-browser) and the new grant type defined in this work. They have also been required to fill in a small questionnaire including some demographic information and their impressions about both authorization flows. The results suggest that the proposed grant type eases the authorization process in most cases.
Year
DOI
Venue
2021
10.3390/s21175716
SENSORS
Keywords
DocType
Volume
access control, authorization, messaging platforms, OAuth, virtual assistants
Journal
21
Issue
ISSN
Citations 
17
1424-8220
0
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.34
0
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Jorge Sancho100.34
José García200.34
Alvaro Alesanco312713.33