Ensure User Data Security in DynamoDB with Third-Party Identity Providers

Answer - B and C.

The AWS Documentation mentions the following.

With web identity federation, you don't need to create custom sign-in code or manage your own user identities.

Instead, users of your app can sign in using a well-known identity provider (IdP) -such as Login with Amazon, Facebook, Google, or any other OpenID Connect (OIDC)-compatible IdP, receive an authentication token, and then exchange that token for temporary security credentials in AWS that map to an IAM role with permissions to use the resources in your AWS account.

Using an IdP helps you keep your AWS account secure, because you don't have to embed and distribute long-term security credentials with your application.

For more information on Web Identity federation, please visit the below url.

To ensure that each user can only access their own data in a DynamoDB table, we need to implement authentication and authorization mechanisms.

Option A suggests creating an IAM user for all users so that they can access the application. However, this approach is not suitable for thousands of users because managing IAM users for each user would be time-consuming and complex.

Option B suggests using Web Identity Federation and registering your application with a third-party identity provider such as Google, Amazon, or Facebook. This option is a better solution for managing authentication and authorization for thousands of users because it allows users to log in to the application using their existing third-party identity provider credentials. This approach enables users to use their social media account, for example, to sign in to the application. The application can then assume an IAM role, which is configured to have specific access to the DynamoDB table, to enforce authorization rules for the user's data.

Option C suggests creating an IAM role that has specific access to the DynamoDB table. However, this approach does not address the authentication aspect of the problem. IAM roles provide authorization, but we need authentication to verify that the user is who they claim to be.

Option D suggests using a third-party identity provider such as Google, Facebook or Amazon to authenticate users and create AWS IAM users with access to the application. This approach is similar to Option B but requires creating IAM users for each user, which is not scalable for thousands of users.

In summary, Option B is the best approach for this scenario as it provides a scalable and secure way to manage authentication and authorization for thousands of users using a third-party identity provider.