3 years ago

Category: Data

HMACs and MACs are authentication codes and are often the backbone of JWT authentication systems. MACs are exactly what they sound like; small codes that allow receivers of messages to know who the sender was (authentication). A MAC code is calculated by using a message and a secret key as inputs. Anyone who has a copy of that secret key can then verify that that code and message were created by someone with the same key.

The interesting thing about the JWT system is that the sender and the receiver of the JWT are typically the same entity, that is, the webserver.