Introduction

Securing AWS Lambda functions is crucial to ensuring data integrity and preventing unauthorized access. Implementing authorization and ownership wrappers in TypeScript enhances security while maintaining performance. This guide explores how to efficiently apply these wrappers to AWS Lambda functions using TypeScript.

Why Use Authorization and Ownership Wrappers?

1. Enhanced Security

Authorization wrappers restrict access based on predefined roles and permissions, ensuring that only authorized users or services can execute specific Lambda functions.

2. Data Integrity

Ownership wrappers validate that the requesting entity has the necessary ownership rights over the requested resources, preventing unauthorized data modifications.

3. Scalability and Maintainability

Implementing reusable authorization and ownership wrappers allows developers to maintain a scalable and modular codebase, reducing redundancy and simplifying permission updates.

Implementing Authorization Wrappers in TypeScript

An authorization wrapper acts as a middleware to verify user roles before executing the Lambda function. The following example demonstrates how to implement an authorization wrapper in TypeScript:

import { APIGatewayEvent, Context, Callback } from ‘aws-lambda’;

interface User {

  id: string;

  role: string;

}

const authorize = (allowedRoles: string[], handler: (event: APIGatewayEvent, context: Context, callback: Callback) => Promise<any>) => {

  return async (event: APIGatewayEvent, context: Context, callback: Callback) => {

    const user: User = JSON.parse(event.headers[“user”] || “{}”);

    if (!user || !allowedRoles.includes(user.role)) {

      return callback(null, {

        statusCode: 403,

        body: JSON.stringify({ message: “Access denied” })

      });

    }

    return handler(event, context, callback);

  };

};

Implementing Ownership Wrappers in TypeScript

Ownership wrappers verify whether a user owns or has access rights to the requested resource before execution.

const enforceOwnership = (getResourceOwner: (resourceId: string) => Promise<string>, handler: (event: APIGatewayEvent, context: Context, callback: Callback) => Promise<any>) => {

  return async (event: APIGatewayEvent, context: Context, callback: Callback) => {

    const user: User = JSON.parse(event.headers[“user”] || “{}”);

    const resourceId = event.pathParameters?.id;

    if (!user || !resourceId) {

      return callback(null, {

        statusCode: 400,

        body: JSON.stringify({ message: “Invalid request” })

      });

    }

    const owner = await getResourceOwner(resourceId);

    if (owner !== user.id) {

      return callback(null, {

        statusCode: 403,

        body: JSON.stringify({ message: “Forbidden: You do not own this resource” })

      });

    }

    return handler(event, context, callback);

  };

};

Integrating Wrappers into AWS Lambda Functions

To integrate these wrappers into an AWS Lambda function, use the following approach:

const handler = async (event: APIGatewayEvent, context: Context, callback: Callback) => {

  return callback(null, {

    statusCode: 200,

    body: JSON.stringify({ message: “Authorized request successful” })

  });

};

export const lambdaHandler = authorize([“admin”, “user”], enforceOwnership(async (id) => “owner-id”, handler));

Conclusion

Implementing authorization and ownership wrappers in TypeScript for AWS Lambda functions enhances security, ensures compliance with access policies, and maintains a scalable architecture. These wrappers help enforce role-based access control (RBAC) and ownership validation, reducing vulnerabilities in serverless applications.