The Difference Between API Gateway and WAAP — and Why You Need Both
Introduction to Akamai API Gateway and Akamai App & API Protector
At Akamai, we're continuously evolving to address the dynamic web application and API protection (WAAP) challenges prevalent in today’s digital landscape. As a committed cybersecurity partner, we diligently survey the latest application programming interface (API) security threats so we can build robust solutions that best protect our valued customers.
Today, we’re highlighting the key capabilities of two Akamai solutions that can work together to bolster enterprise organizations’ security architecture: Akamai API Gateway, our API traffic control solution, and Akamai App & API Protector, our cloud WAAP solution.
Understanding Akamai API Gateway
API Gateway optimizes an organizational network’s API management and security, serving as a critical junction where incoming API requests are authenticated, authorized, and routed. This gateway acts as the first line of defense, scrutinizing API requests before they can interact with back-end systems — inspecting APIs to ensure that they are accessible, efficient, and secure by authenticating and authorizing traffic.
Exploring Akamai App & API Protector
Our App & API Protector transitions from the traditional web application firewall (WAF) and offers comprehensive protection tailored to both web applications and APIs. This solution embodies the next generation of WAAP technologies, providing a unified approach to secure assets from advanced security threats using automation and intelligence at scale. Further, it leverages adaptive security based on continuous learning from global traffic and threats, ensuring up-to-date defenses against evolving cybersecurity challenges.
Powered by strong, constantly updating technology and methodology, this holistic WAAP solution can evolve security postures for enterprise organizations while moving beyond the capabilities of traditional WAFs.
Although the terms “WAF” and “cloud WAAP solution” are often used interchangeably when discussing protection from the OWASP Top 10 Web Application Security Risks and the OWASP Top 10 API Security Risks, we use the latter term as it incorporates protection for both web applications and APIs.
Figure 1 shows how API Gateway authenticates credentials for legitimate and malicious traffic intended for a customer’s environment, and how App & API Protector then applies protections, visibilities, and edge cache scaling to that traffic, ensuring only legitimate traffic reaches the customer.
Fig. 1: Traffic is protected by API Gateway and then protected by App & API Protector before reaching the customer environment
How API Gateway and WAAP work together
An API request’s journey starts at API Gateway, where it’s scrutinized, authenticated/authorized, and intelligently routed.
Once through the gateway, traffic flows into App & API Protector, which conducts deeper security checks, including distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack mitigation, bot management, SSL and TLS encryption, and more. App & API Protector applies security policies for mitigation and remediation of attack attempts.
Akamai’s layered security model allows only secure, legitimate requests to reach and interact with the customer’s critical back-end services and microservices.
How API Gateway and WAAP differ
Although API Gateway and WAAP complement each other as integral components of Akamai’s security controls and architecture, they have distinct roles in mitigating API threats.
API Gateway handles API traffic authentication, authorization, and routing to ensure traffic is optimized for runtime performance and initial security checks.
App & API Protector (our WAAP solution) provides a deeper, more granular level of security. It protects against many malicious hacker approaches prevalent in the threat landscape, including sophisticated web attacks, API abuses, and more, with state-of-the-art security technologies like Akamai Adaptive Security Engine.
Why integrate API Gateway with your security stack?
With API Gateway as the initial checkpoint for all your organization’s incoming API traffic, you get:
Access control. By validating JSON Web Tokens (JWT) and managing API keys at the edge, API Gateway prevents unnecessary traffic from reaching your core systems and offloads your identity provider while significantly reducing network latency.
Traffic management. With the ability to set and enforce limits on API requests, your services stay operational even in the midst of excessive calls. It allows for fine-grained control over who can access what … and how often.
Enhanced reporting and policy enforcement. API Gateway offers insights into API use patterns and can enforce policies like routing rules and API privacy settings, which ensures optimal performance and compliance with various standards.
App & API Protector’s many-in-one security approach
App & API Protector is designed to be a fast, reliable, and comprehensive security solution, incorporating multiple sophisticated features and layers of defense within a single framework (Figure 2).
Fig. 2: App & API Protector is designed to be a many-in-one solution
- Industry-leading application security
- API protection
- DDoS protection
- Bot visibility and mitigation
- Akamai edge platform and content delivery network (CDN)
Industry-leading application security
All your applications get better protection with layered capabilities and customizable granular settings, like advanced rate limiting, which were designed to prevent the most sophisticated threats and address vulnerabilities. Additional protections to factors like client reputation leverage the platform’s extensive visibility to help you achieve a more proactive security stance.
API protection
In addition to API attack protections, our WAAP solution features API Discovery that alerts your security team to new, modified, or vulnerable APIs and proactively reports on APIs that are attempting to use or access personal identifiable information, including credit card numbers, email addresses, and account information. This helps prevent data leaks and comply with laws and regulations that preserve sensitive data.
DDoS protection
Recognized as a market leader in DDoS mitigation, App & API Protector more effectively shields infrastructure by absorbing and dispersing attack traffic at the network edge, far away from the customer’s location. Recent innovations have also enhanced Layer 7 DDoS protections, including rate limiting, to defend volumetric attacks that are targeting your apps.
Bot visibility and mitigation
Gain real-time visibility into your bot traffic with access to Akamai’s expansive directory of more than 1,700 known bots. Investigate skewed web analytics, prevent origin overload, and create your own bot definitions to allow access to third-party and partner bots without obstruction.
Akamai edge platform and content delivery network (CDN)
App & API Protector bridges highly effective security with cutting-edge performance from our leading edge platform, and provides 100% service-level agreement availability with our CDN solution. Customer-loved capabilities like Akamai Site Shield, Akamai Image and Video Manager, Akamai mPulse Lite, Akamai EdgeWorkers, and Akamai API Acceleration are also included.
Safeguard your network from any threat, all the time
API Gateway and App & API Protector serve as critical components of a robust security architecture, optimizing API management and preliminary security while providing deeper, more comprehensive protections against increasingly complex threats. Together, they can defend your applications and APIs from ever-evolving cyberthreats.
With access to, and a firm grasp of, these best-in-class security solutions, your organization can achieve a more secure and efficient digital environment. As a result, you can do better business and provide incredible user experiences while confidently safeguarding critical assets.
Learn more
Read the 2024 Gartner® Peer Insights™ Voice of the Customer: Cloud WAAP report to learn more about why enterprise organizations protect their web applications and APIs with WAAP and AppSec solutions from Akamai.
