Security threats are always a concern when it comes to APIs. API security can be compared to driving a car. You have to be careful and review everything closely before releasing it into the world. By failing to do so, you are putting yourself and others at risk.
API attacks are more dangerous than other breaches. Facebook had 50 million user accounts affected by an API breach, and a Hostinger account API data breach exposed 14 million customer data.
If a hacker gets into your API endpoints, it could spell disaster for your project. Depending on the industries and geographies you’re talking about, insecure APIs can land you in hot water. Especially in the EU, if you’re serving banks, you could face massive legal and compliance issues if you’re found to be using insecure APIs.
To mitigate these risks, you must be aware of the potential API Vulnerabilities that cybercriminals can exploit.
6 Commonly Overlooked API Security Risks
#1 No risk of visibility and monitoring of API tools’
When you expand your use of cloud-based networks, the number of devices and APIs in use also increases. Unfortunately, this increase also leads to less visibility into those APIs you expose internally or externally.
Shadowed, hidden, or obsolete APIs that fall outside your security team’s visibility create more opportunities for successful cyberattacks against unknown APIs, API parameters, and business logic. Traditional tools like API gateways lack the ability to provide a complete inventory of all APIs.
Must have API visibility, includes
- Centralized visibility as well as an inventory of all APIs
- Detailed view of API traffic
- Visibility of APIs transmitting sensitive information
- Automatic API risk analysis with predefined criteria
#2 API Incompetence
It is important to pay attention to your API calls to avoid passing duplicate or duplicate requests to the API. When two deployed APIs attempt to use the same URL, this can cause repeated and redundant API usage issues. This is because the endpoints in both APIs use the same URL. To avoid this, each API should have its own unique optimized URL.
#3 Threats to service availability
Targeted API DDoS attacks, with the help of botnets, can overload the CPU cycles and processor power of the API server, sending service calls with invalid requests and making it unavailable for legitimate traffic. API DDoS attacks target not only your servers running APIs, but also any API endpoint.
Rate limiting gives you the confidence to keep your applications healthy, but a good response plan comes with multi-layered security solutions such as AppTrana API Protection. Accurate and fully managed API protection continuously monitors API traffic and immediately blocks malicious requests before they reach your server.
#4 Being hesitant to use the API
As a B2B company, you often need to expose your internal API usage numbers to teams outside the organization. This can be a great way to facilitate collaboration and allow others to access your data and services. However, it is essential to carefully consider who you give access to your API and what level of access they need. You don’t want to open up your API too widely and create security risks.
API calls should be closely monitored when they are shared between partners or customers. This helps ensure that everyone uses the API as intended and doesn’t overload the system.
#5 API Injection
API injection is a term used to describe when malicious code is injected with the API request. The injected command, when executed, can even delete the entire user page from the server. The main reason APIs are vulnerable to this risk is that the API developer fails to sanitize the input before it appears in the API code.
This security gap causes serious problems for users, including identity theft and data breaches, so it is essential to be aware of the risk. Add server-side login authentication to prevent injection attacks and avoid executing special characters.
#6 Attacks against IoT devices through APIs
Effective use of IoT depends on the level of API security management; if that’s not happening, you’re going to have a hard time with your IoT device.
As time passes and technology advances, hackers will always use new ways to exploit vulnerabilities in IoT products. While APIs enable powerful extensibility, they open new entryways for hackers to access sensitive data on your IoT devices. To avoid many threats and challenges faced by IoT devices, APIs need to be more secure.
Therefore, you should keep your IoT devices updated with the latest security patches to ensure that they are protected from the latest threats.
Stop API risk by implementing WAAP
In today’s world, organizations are under constant threat of API attacks. With new vulnerabilities appearing every day, it is essential to regularly inspect all APIs for potential threats. Web application security tools are insufficient to protect your business from such risks. For API protection to work, it must be fully dedicated to API security. WAAP (Web Application and API Protection) can be an effective solution in this regard.
Indusface WAAP is a solution to the ever-present problem of API security. This allows you to limit the flow of data to what is necessary, preventing you from accidentally leaking or exposing sensitive information. Also, the holistic Web Application and API Protection (WAAP) platform comes with the trinity of behavioral analytics, security-centric monitoring, and API management to keep malicious API actions at bay.
