How to use API keys to secure web APIs in ASP.NET Core
There are several ways to secure your APIs in ASP.NET Core 7. You can use a user authentication mechanism such as JWT tokens, ASP.NET Core Identity, bearer tokens, OpenID Connect, or an OAuth 2.0 identity provider, to name a few. API key authentication is yet another approach you can adopt to help secure your APIs.
Note that API key authentication does not identify or authenticate the user. Rather, API key authentication uses API keys to authenticate the applications or services that access your APIs. An API key is a token or unique identifier that is passed to an API via request header, cookie, or query string.