Understanding API Threat Protection

API threat protection is the process of detecting and remediating API cyberattacks. Given that most web applications rely heavily on APIs, threat protection and API security have become vital components of web application security.

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API threat protection contributes to an organization’s broader security posture. With significant reputational and financial consequences to successful cyberattacks, proactively protecting APIs from threats and developing specific API security processes is critical to:

Preventing API functionality from being compromised.
Keeping your corporate data secure from third parties.
Maintaining system integrity.
Ensuring regulatory compliance.

The Importance of API Threat Protection

Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) provide a set of protocols and definitions for one piece of software to interact with another. The API governs these interactions, controlling the requests made and the data that can be accessed and shared between different applications. This includes internal and external interactions, with APIs enabling external clients to request data and incorporate functionality into their own applications.

APIs provide access to business logic and sensitive data to enable new services and applications. However, if left unsecured, bad actors can manipulate and exploit this same access for their own gain. This includes controlling IT assets, accessing sensitive business data, or disrupting services.

Plus, as organizations incorporate more and more APIs, they further extend their attack surface. Hackers have many potential entry points to target, and overseeing these complex ecosystems requires significant API vulnerability management and governance. It is easy to accidentally introduce vulnerabilities and misconfigurations or fail to incorporate proper API security tools and processes for authorization, authentication, encryption, and other protections.

Given the opportunities they provide, it is not surprising that API security threats are increasing each year. Check Point research shows attacks jumped 20% in the first month of 2024 compared to January 2023, as 1 in 4.6 organizations around the world were impacted by web API attacks each week.

So, what are the main API security threats you need to protect against?

Top API Security Threats

In response to increasing API attacks, the Open Worldwide Application Security Project (OWASP) began releasing dedicated lists of API vulnerabilities distinct from its top 10 web application security vulnerabilities. OWASP last updated its top 10 API vulnerabilities in 2023.

Generally speaking, these other API vulnerabilities can be divided into four main categories:

Vulnerability Exploits: Taking advantage of a flaw or bug in the API to gain unauthorized access to either the API or the corresponding application. Examples include SQL injection and security misconfigurations.
Authentication-based Attacks: Accepting requests from unknown or malicious parties utilizing the API for their gain. Examples include stealing or intercepting credentials, API keys, or authentication tokens.
Authorization Errors: Providing clients with access beyond what they should have and increasing the likelihood of data breaches.
DoS and DDoS Attacks: The attacker sends a huge number of API requests, overwhelming systems to interrupt services for legitimate users.

API Security vs. Application Security

As mentioned above, API security and threat protection are core components of application security. While the two have overlapping functionality and share common security principles, protecting APIs from attacks presents some unique challenges that are less relevant to the broader field of application security.

Specific API security threats can include:

The vast number of APIs in use across an organization, which makes API vulnerability management and identifying risks more challenging.
APIs designed for third-party use that expose a range of data and functionality to potential abuse.
Attacks that bypass API threat protections by hijacking trusted third-party services.
Utilizing third-party APIs yourself increases your attack surface to include potential vulnerabilities in others’ code.
The difference between APIs typically using tokens for authentication and applications usually relying on session authentication.
A lack of visual interfaces and greater reliance on automated threat protections, which makes it more difficult to identify API vulnerabilities.
With frequent updates, it is easy for API drift to occur where API behavior no longer matches documentation or defined security policies.

To respond to the growing risk from API and application threats, many cybersecurity vendors offer Web Application & API Protection (WAAP) solutions. These web applications and API security tools go beyond traditional firewall services to include more specialized capabilities and protections. For example, a WAAP is located on the outer edge in front of public web applications, specifically analyzing Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) traffic.

5 API Threat Protection Tips

Listed below are 5 tips or API security best practices to help protect yourself from the growing risks associated with API attacks.

#1. Implement an API Gateway

Utilizing an API gateway is a great first step to protecting APIs from attacks. An API gateway acts as a single entry point for API calls or third-party requests. It oversees API traffic and routes traffic to different services. API gateways provide various protections while also helping to understand API access. They enable some of the tips listed below, in particular rate limiting, and authorization and authentication.

However, API gateways are not enough on their own as they provide limited visibility and only analyze traffic routed through the gateway. They do not provide visibility into internal traffic or requests bypassing the gateway. This means the API gateway may not identify misconfigured APIs or malicious activity.

#2. Use Rate Limiting and Throttling

Rate limiting puts a hard cap on how many requests can be sent in a certain time period. API clients going over this limit are blocked to prevent the system from becoming overwhelmed and affecting legitimate users.

Throttling malicious API requests is critical to preventing brute-force attacks such as Denial of Service (DoS) and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) or other malicious activity. Beyond security, rate limiting can also help control server workloads and ensure a better overall service.

#3. Implement Robust Authentication and Authorization Procedures

Authentication and authorization methods ensure that only approved users access your APIs. With proper access control, you can keep attackers away from sensitive data and business logic. The most common authentication methods utilize web tokens such as OAuth2 or JSON. Additionally, API services provide clients with a unique API key for them to use when making a request.

Methods and strategies to improve your access control include Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) and Role-Based Access Control (RBAC). These make it harder to hijack trusted accounts and restrict data access so users can only access what they need to perform their role.

#4. Encrypt Sensitive Business Data

Encryption converts your sensitive data into code or cipher text that can only be decrypted by users with the corresponding key. Anyone intercepting encrypted data through APIs cannot access its original form and take advantage of the information it contains. Many industries with particularly sensitive datasets, such as healthcare and financial services, have regulations that require businesses to encrypt personal data.

#5. Run Regular Security Tests

Security tests are critical to API threat protection and tracking changes in your API ecosystem that may lead to misconfigurations and new vulnerabilities. Regular security tests provide insights into your API usage to improve threat protection and keep hackers away from your sensitive data.

There are many different types of tests you can use to scan your systems, including:

Vulnerability Scanning: Automated security tools check your systems for known vulnerabilities.
Penetration Scanning: The simulation of attacks to uncover weak points in your threat protections.

API-specific Testing: This includes testing authentication processes, checking for broken object-level authorization, validating inputs, and ensuring proper encryption standards are in place.

API Threat Protection with CloudGuard WAF

CloudGuard is a comprehensive prevention-first Web Application Firewall (WAF) with contextual AI to protect your Web apps and APIs from both known and unknown threats. Awarded best cloud security service across various categories in GigaOm’s annual report, CloudGuard offers a range of dedicated API threat protection features, including:

Automated API discovery and analysis to understand usage and identify vulnerabilities.
Continuous API monitoring to spot changes and reduce API drifts that create security gaps.
Inbuilt DDoS protection to stop automated attacks.

Learn more about CloudGuard WAF and how it could transform your API threat protection strategy.