Why Authentication and Authorization Must Be Separated

Vulnerabilities are inevitable, but enterprise-wide compromises don’t have to be. Forward-looking organizations are adopting layered defense in identity.

When I look at the recent Entra (Azure AD) vulnerability, where actor tokens could be misused to impersonate admins across tenants, I do not see it as a failure of Microsoft. I see it as a reminder that authentication and authorization must both be treated as first-class disciplines. Many large platforms couple the two together. The same system that verifies the user also issues the tokens that authorize access. When that coupling breaks, it creates a single point of failure and exposes the organization to systemic risk.

At SecureAuth, we built our platform on the principle that authentication and authorization must remain independent. Authentication confirms identity, while authorization reissues a SecureAuth token after policy checks so that access is always conditioned on risk, device posture, and context.

This means we can augment providers like Microsoft Entra by validating upstream tokens, applying adaptive policies, and issuing SecureAuth tokens that are scoped, revocable, and fully auditable. And for organizations that need an end-to-end solution, SecureAuth can also serve as the primary authentication and authorization platform. The result is flexibility: either a dual layer with Entra or a complete SecureAuth-driven identity layer, ensuring identities are continuously protected and authorized across applications and APIs.

This layered approach accepts that vulnerabilities will occur, but it ensures they never escalate into enterprise-wide compromises. The real question for security leaders is whether identity in their organization is designed for resilience, or still reliant on a single platform that does not treat authentication and authorization as independent disciplines.