Building Secure Go APIs: User Authentication and Resource Ownership

Building a web application in Go is exciting, but securing user data and ensuring users can only modify their own resources is critical for production success. This course guides you through the fundamental principles of API security in Go, teaching you how to authenticate users and enforce strict resource ownership rules so that user-generated content remains safe from unauthorized access. What you'll learn: 1. Understand the foundational concepts of authentication, authorization, and data ownership. 2. Implement secure token-based authentication using Go standard library and modern packages. 3. Create reusable Go middleware to intercept requests and validate user sessions. 4. Write conditional logic to restrict resource updates and deletions to the original creator. 5. Pass user identity securely through request lifecycles using Go context propagation. 6. Write robust unit tests in Go to verify your authorization rules and security boundaries. You will start with the core concepts of web security and database relationships before moving step-by-step through writing middleware, handling user context, and implementing ownership checks in your handlers. This course is designed for developers who are familiar with Go basics and want to learn practical, real-world API security and authorization patterns. No advanced security background is required. Start reading today to build secure, production-ready Go applications.