27th July 2021, Kathmandu
After more than 20 years of brewing, it is now official-APIs are everywhere. In a 2021 survey, 73% of companies reported that they had released more than 50 APIs, which is still growing.
API plays an important role in almost every industry today, and their importance is increasing as they enter the forefront of business strategy.
This is not surprising: APIs seamlessly connect different applications and devices, providing unprecedented business efficiency and synergy.
However, the API is as vulnerable as any other software. Plus, if not rigorously tested from a security perspective, they can introduce a whole new range of attack surfaces and expose you to unprecedented risks. If you wait until the production environment discovers the API vulnerabilities, it can cause significant delays.
Remember, APIs are more than just connecting your application; they change functionality in unpredictable ways. Many of the unique vulnerabilities that APIs can introduce are well known to hackers, who have developed different methods to attack their API to access the underlying data and functions.
According to OWASP’s Top 10 APIs, it is not uncommon for legitimate and authenticated users to take advantage of API calls that appear to be legitimate but are actually intended to manipulate the API. These attacks aim to manipulate business logic and exploit design flaws, and are very attractive to attackers.
You see, each API is unique and proprietary. Therefore, its software bugs and vulnerabilities are unique and “unknown.” The types of errors that cause business logic or business process level attacks are complicated to identify as defenders.