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Authentication & session management

ID MOD-068
System SD08
Repo bank-app
Build status Deployed
Deployed Yes
Last commit bc8ae27c9ecc660c7eb59e321a9936d2a0c54463

Authentication and session management is the security boundary between the internet and all customer-facing and operator-facing surfaces of the platform. It handles the full ceremony of proving identity — biometric gesture, passkey assertion, MFA challenge — and converts a successful proof into a scoped, time-limited session token that all downstream modules rely on.

The module maintains a device registry: each device used to access the platform is fingerprinted and assigned a trust level on first use after a full authentication ceremony. Recognised trusted devices can use biometric-only login; new or suspicious devices are challenged with additional factors. Step-up authentication is triggered automatically by the payment initiation and operations modules when a high-risk action is requested — the user is re-challenged in-flow before the action proceeds.

Session tokens are short-lived and silently refreshed in the background; the module revokes all active sessions for a customer on logout, password change, or when the fraud scorer raises a suspicious-activity flag. Designed against FIDO2 / WebAuthn standards with phishing-resistant credentials as the primary factor.


Module dependencies

Depends on

Module Title Required? Contract Reason
MOD-044 JWT role-based access control Required Session tokens are issued as JWTs validated by the RBAC module — token issuance is coordinated with the JWT signing infrastructure.
MOD-045 Secrets & key management Required Session signing keys and FIDO2 credential keys are managed by the secrets and key management module.
MOD-104 AWS shared infrastructure bootstrap Required AWS shared infrastructure provisioned by MOD-104 (EventBridge buses, S3, KMS, Kinesis, Cognito) is required before this module can be deployed.
MOD-103 Neon database platform bootstrap Required Neon database and schema provisioned by MOD-103 must exist before this module can read or write Postgres.
MOD-075 Internal API gateway Required Internal HTTP API gateway (MOD-075) must be deployed before MOD-068 can register its /auth/* routes and receive inbound requests from the mobile app.
MOD-043 EventBridge domain event governance Required EventBridge Schema Registry (MOD-043) must be deployed before MOD-068 can register the bank.app.session_created and bank.app.session_revoked event schemas at deploy time.

Required by

Module Title As Contract
MOD-024 Device & session intelligence Hard dependency
MOD-049 Open banking consent management Hard dependency
MOD-050 Disclosure enforcement module Hard dependency
MOD-052 Role-scoped data access Hard dependency
MOD-053 Case & complaint management module Hard dependency
MOD-069 Customer app shell Hard dependency
MOD-070 Transaction history & search Hard dependency
MOD-071 Payment initiation Hard dependency
MOD-072 Customer profile & settings Hard dependency
MOD-077 Account dashboard & insight feed Hard dependency
MOD-078 Card & account controls Hard dependency
MOD-148 Privacy access request (DSAR) workflow Hard dependency
MOD-151 Risk case console Hard dependency
MOD-155 Target Market Determination (AU DDO) Hard dependency
MOD-164 Facility component self-service Hard dependency
MOD-177 SD06 risk dashboard renderer Hard dependency

Policies satisfied

Policy Title Mode How
DT-002 Cybersecurity Policy GATE Enforces multi-factor authentication and device trust checks as a prerequisite for session establishment — no session is issued without passing cybersecurity controls.
PRI-001 Privacy Policy GATE Access to customer data requires a valid, unrevoked session tied to a verified identity — no anonymous data access is permitted.

Capabilities satisfied

Capability Title Mode How
CAP-024 Biometric login (Face ID / fingerprint) GATE Biometric gesture (Face ID / fingerprint) is evaluated by the device OS and the result is attested to the session engine before a token is issued.
CAP-036 Passkey / FIDO2 authentication GATE Registers and authenticates FIDO2/passkey credentials against stored device-bound keys — password-less login with phishing resistance.
CAP-037 Step-up authentication for high-value transactions GATE Re-challenges with biometric or passkey when a high-value transaction triggers a step-up requirement before execution is permitted.
CAP-108 Device registration & trust GATE Registers the device fingerprint and assigns a trust level — untrusted devices are limited to read-only until a full MFA ceremony is completed.
CAP-109 Session lifecycle management AUTO Issues short-lived access tokens and silent refresh tokens, revoking all sessions on logout or suspicious activity detection.

Part of SD08 — Customer App & Back Office Platform Compiled 2026-05-22 from source/entities/modules/MOD-068.yaml