Security for web services only used from a Silverlight application?

Question

I have googled a bit for how I should handle security in a web service application when the application is basically the data repository for a Silverlight application, but have gotten inconclusive results.

The Silverlight application is not supposed to have its own user authentication, since it will be reachable only through a web application that the user have already authenticated to get into.

As such, I was thinking I could simply add a parameter to the SL application that is a cookie-type value, with a certain lifetime, linked to the user in the database. The SL application would then have to pass this value alongside other parameters to the web services. Since the web service is hopefully going to be a generic web service endpoint, few methods, adding an extra parameter at this level will not be a problem.

But, am I supposed to roll this system on my own? It sounds to me as this isn't exactly new features that nobody has considered before, so what are my options?

Answer 1

First of all use SSL for the service. Otherwise users will be able to capture all the parameters passed to the service. It's still possible to see it in case of https but it will be a little bit more difficult.

Also, consider using Message Inspector for adding custom headers to the messages which you will validate on the server. This way you will not need to add extra parameters.