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Discussion on: How to securely store JWT tokens.

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lukehglazebrook profile image
Luke Glazebrook

First off, great article! I've recently finished building an authentication system that works very similar to the one you've described but, with a distinct difference: I store the JWT across two cookies.

One cookie contains just the JWT header and payload and can be accessed by JavaScript, the other contains the signature but is Secure + HttpOnly. This way I can access the payload on the client without worrying about having the entire token potentially compromised.

Authentication in SPA the right way by Jean-Cristophe Baey describes this approach in a bit more detail.

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gkoniaris profile image
George Koniaris

Thank you very much. That's a very clever approach!!! I will definitely try it on my next projects.

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anduser96 profile image
Andrei Gatej

Interesting approach. But would it be wrong if you'd read the payload from a HTTP response instead? IMO, it would be the same thing as reading it from the cookie.