Web API authentication/authorization using SSO instead of OAUTH
Updated based on questions from @user18044 below
If a user is authenticated in two different web applications via 2 different SAML-based identity providers, and one of the applications needs to request data from a web API exposed by the other application, would it be possible to call the web API methods securely by virtue of the user's current authenticated status in both applications without separately securing the API methods via an API level authentication protocol such as OAUTH? Note that both applications are owned and operated by my company and share the same 2nd level domains and user base, even though the identity servers are different (one is legacy).
Some further information: Application A is a portal application that is going to host widgets using data supplied from Application B. Application A will only communicate with application B via a web API exposed by application B. Currently application B does not expose a web API (except internally to the application itself). This is new functionality that will need to be added to application B. Application A will use Okta as its SSO. Our lead architect's proposal is to continue to use a custom legacy IDP server that we developed internally based around using the dk.nita.saml20 DLL. They are both SAML based I believe, but I don't think they could share the same identity token without some retrofitting. But this is hitting the limits of my knowledge on the topic of authentication. :) I think our architect's plan was to have the user authenticate separately using the two different identity providers and then only secure the web API using CORS, his reasoning being that since the user is already known and authenticated to use application B, that there wouldn't be any security implications in allowing application A to call application B's web api methods, as the user should be authenticated in application B. This seems quirky to me, in that I can imagine a lot of browser redirects happening that might not be transparent to the user, but other than that, I'm just trying to figure out where the security holes might lie, because it feels to me that there would be some.
I know that this approach would not be considered a best practice, however with that being said, I really want to understand why not. Are there security implications? Would it even work? And if so, are there any "gotchas" or things to consider during implementation?
To reiterate, our lead architect is proposing this solution, and it is failing my gut check, but I don't know enough on the topic to be able to justify my position or else to feel comfortable enough to accept his. Hoping some security experts out there could enlighten me.
It's hard to answer without knowing more on how your current applications and APIs are secured exactly. Do the web application and its API have the same relying party identifier (ie can the same token be used to authenticate against both)?
If both web applications use the WS-Federation protocol to authenticate users, then most likely the SAML token will be stored in cookies that were set when the identity provider posted the token back to the application.
You do not have access to these cookies from JavaScript. If the web API that belongs to application B uses the same cookie based authentication mechanism, you could use this provided you allow for cross origin resource sharing.
If your web API uses something like a bearer token authentication scheme (like OAuth) or has a different relying party id in the STS, this would obviously not work.
I think the reason this fails your gut check is because you are basically accessing the web API in a way a cross-site request forgery attack would do it.
A problem I see with this approach is that if the user is not authenticated with the other web application, then the call to your API will also fail.
I agree with user18044 as far as it being based on a cross-site request forgery attack and the security between applications. Is it true that if User X has access to App A, that they will have access to App B and vice versa? If that is not the case, then each application will need to be authenticated separately...and it won't be a SSO. I found these links that might be helpful in your situation.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5583460/how-to-implement-secure-single-sign-on-across-various-web-apps
https://developer.salesforce.com/page/Implementing_Single_Sign-On_Across_Multiple_Organizations
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