How to Manage API Security Risks to Boost Your Defenses

By SANDEEP BABU

The usage of application programming interfaces (APIs) has skyrocketed. Organizations are now relying on multiple APIs to carry out day-to-day functions efficiently. This growth of API usage has put APIs on hackers' radar, prompting them to devise innovative ways to exploit API vulnerabilities.

Why is API security crucial, and what can you do to manage API security risks? Let's find out.

Why Should You Focus on API Security?

APIs are crucial in modern mobile, SaaS, and web applications. Organizations use APIs in customer-facing, partner-facing, and internal applications. As APIs expose application logic and sensitive data like Personally Identifiable Information (PII), hackers constantly try hard to gain access to APIs. Hacked APIs often lead to data breaches, causing financial and reputational damage to organizations.

According to Palo Alto Networks and ESG research, 92 percent of companies surveyed experienced an API-related security incident in 2022. Of these companies, 57 percent companies had multiple API-related security incidents. That said, it is critical to enhance API security to prevent API attacks.

Here are some ways to help you minimize common API security risks and protect sensitive data.

1. Implement Secure Authentication and Authorization

Authentication means a request to access an API resource comes from a legitimate user, and authorization ensures that the user has authorized access to the requested API resource.

Implementing secure secure API authentication and authorization is the first line of defense against unauthorized access to your API resources.

Here are essential authentication methods for APIs.

API Key

In this authentication method, a client will have an API Key that only the client and the API server know. When a client sends a request to access an API resource, the key is attached to the request to let the API knows that the request is legitimate.

There is a problem with the API Key authentication method. Hackers can access API resources if they get hold of the API key. So, it is crucial to encrypt API requests and API responses to prevent hackers from stealing API Keys.

Username and Password

You can implement the username and password method to authenticate API requests. But be informed that hackers employ various tricks to hack passwords. And API clients can also share their usernames and passwords with untrusted parties.So username and password method doesn't offer optimum security.

Mutual TLS (mTLS)

In the mutual TLS authentication method, both the API endpoints and clients have a TLS certificate. And they authenticate each other using these certificates. Maintaining and enforcing TLS certificates is challenging, so this method is not widely used to authenticate API requests.

JWT Authentication (JSON Web Token)

In this API authentication method, JSON Web Tokens are used to authenticate and authorize API clients. When a client sends a sign-in request, including username, password, or any other type of sign-in credentials, the API creates an encrypted JSON Web Token and sends the token to the client.

Then, the client will use this JSON Web Token in the subsequent API requests to authenticate and authorize themselves.

OAuth2.0 With OpenID Connect

OAuth offers authorization services, allowing users to authenticate themselves without sharing passwords. OAuth2.0 is based on a token concept and often is used with the OpenID Connect authentication mechanism. This API authentication and authorization method is commonly used to secure APIs.

2. Enforce Role-Based Access Control

Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), which uses the security principle of least privilege, determines the level of access to a resource based on the user's role.

Implementing Role-Based Access Control ensures that only authorized users will be able to access data according to their roles. None will have unrestricted access to all API resources.

3. Encrypt All Requests and Responses

API traffic often includes sensitive information, such as credentials and data. Ensure all network traffic (especially all incoming API requests and responses)is encrypted using SSL/TSL encryption. Data encryption prevents hackers from exposing user credentials or any other type of sensitive data.

4. Use an API Gateway

If you don't use an API gateway, you will have to embed code within the app so that it can tell the app how to handle API calls. But this process requires more development work and may increase API security risks.

By using API gateways, companies can manage API calls from external systems through a central gateway outside the application programming interface.

What's more, API gateways also make API management easier, enhance API security, and improve scalability and availability.

Popular API gateways include Amazon API gateway, Azure API Gateway, Oracle API gateway, and Kong gateway.

5. Enforce Rate Limiting

API rate limit allows you to set a limit on API requests or calls a client can make to your API. Enforcing API rate limits can help you prevent Distributed Denial of Service(DDoS) attacks.

You can limit API requests either per second, minute, hour, day, or month. And you have various options to implement API rate limits:

When you implement Hard Stop, your clients will get Error 429 when they reach their limit. In Soft Stop, your clients will have a brief grace period to make API calls after the API rate limit is over. You can also implement Throttled Stop, allowing your clients to make API requests once the limit is over, but at a slower speed.

API rate limiting minimizes API security threats and reduces back-end costs.

6. Limit Data Exposure

Make sure that responses to an API request don't return more data than what is relevant or necessary. If the API call is for a zip code, it should provide only the zip code, not the complete address.

Displaying as little as possible in API responses improves response time as well.

7. Validate Parameters

API requests require a number of input parameters. For every API request, your API routine must validate the presence and content of each parameter. Doing so protects the integrity of your API and prevents the processing of malicious or malformed input.

You should never bypass parameter validation checks.

8. Keep Tabs on API Activity

Make a plan to monitor and log API activities. This can help you detect suspicious activities of threat actors well before they can do any harm to your API server or your API clients. Start logging all API calls and responses.

Various tools, such as Sematext, Dotcom-Monitor, or Checkly, help you monitor your API in real time.

9. Check API Security Regularly

Don't make API security testing only part of the API development process. Instead, check the security of your live API consistently. Doing so will help your security team identify security misconfiguration and API vulnerabilities that your development team may have missed during the API implementation phase.

Also, your security team should create an incident response plan to handle any API security incident.

Manage API Security Risks to Protect Valuable Data

As organizations are increasingly implement APIs in their digital transformation processes, threat actors are perpetually looking for API vulnerabilities to exploit. Once they get access to your API, they can steal sensitive data. So you must enhance API security to minimize API security risks.