What makes API security an emerging challenge in cybersecurity?
APIs, or application programming interfaces, play an important role in modern software development. They transformed the way web applications work by making it easier for applications, containers, and microservices to communicate data and information. APIs can be linked by developers to numerous software or other internal systems, allowing businesses to engage with their clients and make informed decisions.
Despite the numerous advantages, hackers can use API weaknesses to obtain unauthorized access to sensitive data, resulting in data breaches, financial losses, and reputational harm. Businesses must therefore understand the API security threat environment and look for the most effective mitigation strategies.
The urgent need to enhance API security
APIs facilitate data transfers between applications and systems and aid in the smooth execution of complex activities. However, as the average number of APIs increases, corporations frequently ignore their vulnerabilities, making them an ideal target for hackers. According to the findings of the State of API Security Q1 Report 2023 survey, attacks on APIs have surged 400% in the last six months.
It flaws damage important systems, resulting in unauthorized access and data breaches such as the Twitter and Optus API hacks. Cybercriminals can use the vulnerabilities to perform a variety of attacks, including authentication attacks, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, and malware attacks. API security has emerged as a serious corporate issue, with another analysis revealing that by 2023, API abuses will be the most common attack vector-producing data breaches, with unsafe APIs accounting for 50% of data theft occurrences. Due to this, protecting data has become a top priority for businesses, which may cost them $75 billion annually.
Why is API security still a concern in 2023?
Securing APIs has always been a difficult problem for most organizations, owing to API misconfigurations and the surge in cloud data breaches. As the security landscape changed, API sprawl emerged as the most serious threat to API security. The uncontrolled expansion of APIs within an organization is known as API sprawl, and it is a typical issue for businesses with various apps, services, and development teams.
As more APIs are developed, the attack surface expands and hackers become more interested in them. The problem is that APIs are not usually created with security requirements in mind. As a result, sensitive data such as personally identifiable information (PII) or other business data is exposed due to a lack of authorisation and authentication.
API sprawl results in shadow and zombie APIs, which further jeopardize It. A zombie API is a vulnerable, abandoned, out-of-date, or forgotten API that adds to the API security danger environment. These APIs were useful at one point, however, they were eventually superseded by newer ones. As firms work on developing new products or services, they overlook the previously existing APIs, allowing threat actors to infiltrate the weak API and obtain critical data.
Shadow APIs, on the other hand, are third-party APIs that are frequently established without sufficient oversight and hence go untracked and undocumented. Failure to safeguard against shadow APIs results in reliability difficulties, unintended data loss, penalties for noncompliance, and increased operational costs.
Furthermore, the introduction of new technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) has made maintaining API security more complex. With more internet-connected devices that can be accessed remotely, any insufficient security measures might result in illegal access and significant data breaches. Furthermore, generative AI systems can bring security risks. AI algorithms can be used by hackers to find flaws in APIs and launch targeted attacks.
Best practices to improve API security amid rising threats
API security has become a key concern for enterprises, necessitating a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy to mitigate threats and vulnerabilities. To increase API security, developers and security teams must work together to apply best practices such as those listed below:
Discover all the APIs
API discovery is essential for identifying modern API security risks such as zombie and shadow APIs. Security teams are trained to secure mission-critical APIs, but discovering internal, external, and third-party APIs is equally important for improving API security. Organizations must invest in automated API discovery technologies that detect every API endpoint and offer visibility into which APIs are operational, where they are located, and how they work.
Developers should additionally monitor API traffic by incorporating API gateways and proxies, which can detect the presence of shadow APIs. Creating regulations that specify how APIs are documented, utilized, and managed also aids in the discovery of undiscovered or vulnerable APIs.
Assess all APIs via testing
As API security threats become increasingly ubiquitous, security teams can no longer rely on traditional testing methodologies. They must use advanced security testing methodologies such as SAST (static application security testing). It is a white-box security testing method that detects vulnerabilities and fixes security problems in source code. Giving developers fast feedback allows them to write secure code, which leads to secure applications. However, because this testing cannot uncover vulnerabilities outside of the code, security teams should consider employing alternative security testing methods to increase security standards, such as DAST, IAST, or XDR.
Adopt a Zero Trust security framework
Users must also authorize and authenticate themselves in order to access the data, which helps to reduce the attack surface.
To access them and help decrease the attack surface, users must approve and authenticate themselves. Furthermore, APIs can be divided into smaller units with their own set of authentication, permission, and security standards by employing Zero Trust architecture (ZTA). This provides security architects with greater control over API access and improves API security.
API posture management
API posture management is another excellent method for assisting organizations in detecting, monitoring, and mitigating possible security threats caused by weak APIs. Various posture management technologies constantly monitor the APIs and alert them to any suspicious or unauthorized activity. This allows enterprises to respond quickly to API security issues while also reducing the attack surface.
These solutions also do frequent vulnerability scans on APIs to look for security problems, allowing enterprises to take steps to improve API security. Furthermore, these solutions enable API auditing and verify compliance with key industry requirements such as HIPAA or GDPR, as well as other corporate policies to preserve transparency and maximize overall security standards.
Implementing API threat prevention
Improving API security is a continual endeavour; thus, dangers might exist despite tight monitoring and security rules. This highlights the importance of using proactive API threat prevention solutions that identify and mitigate potential API attacks that have a negative impact on a business.
API threat prevention encompasses the application of specific security solutions and techniques like threat modelling, behavioural analysis, vulnerability scanning, incident response, and reporting. Organizations can also avert data breaches and ensure continued company operations by continuously monitoring, imposing encryption or authentication measures, or limiting API rate restrictions.
Conclusion
Organizations face significant issues in safeguarding APIs from malicious actors, resulting in unauthorized access and potential data breaches, as API adoption grows. As a result, every developer’s primary obligation is to ensure API security. This can be accomplished by implementing methods such as identifying all APIs, completing security testing, implementing a Zero Trust strategy, utilizing API posture management tools, and implementing API threat prevention strategies. By implementing these principles, security teams can limit the API danger surface, assure the security of all APIs, and remain compliant with industry standards.
