itsual API Security
Overview
APIs are application attack surface with machine-scale access. Broken auth, excessive data exposure, and lack of inventory are recurring failure modes.
When to Use
- API design and gateway policy
- Reviewing microservices and mobile backends
- Third-party API integration security
- Testing for OWASP API Top risks
Core Practices
- Inventory all APIs including shadow and deprecated endpoints
- Authenticate strongly; authorize at object and function level
- Validate inputs and enforce schemas
- Rate-limit and detect abuse patterns
- Minimize data returned; avoid mass assignment flaws
- Log access and anomalies for API traffic
Principles
- Security through obscurity of endpoint URLs is not control
- “Internal only” APIs become external under misconfig or SSRF
- Broken object-level authorization is a top real-world issue
- Versioning and decommissioning reduce long-lived weak endpoints
Verification
- API inventory is reasonably complete
- AuthZ checks are enforced server-side per object
- Rate limits and logging exist on public APIs