Attribute Based Access Control for Mulesoft APIs

How can we automate the processes of API registrations and access controls to make it easier to manage at scale? Attribute-based access control (ABAC) has unique advantages over role-based access control (RBAC) for API gateway management, especially when it’s enabled with the OAuth2 JSON web token (JWT). Let’s explore how ABAC could be implemented effectively for Mulesoft API gateway through a custom policy.

Background

By default, the Mule Anypoint Platform comes with its own identify provider (IdP) (ref2). This IdP is intended to help customers to jump-start their projects or create PoCs. It is not provided for production deployments, especially with a large number of client applications. For that purpose, Mule supports integration with external IdPs, such as Okta, OpenAM, etc.