Four Steps: Effective API Security Using a Digital Bonding Strategy
Digital bonding is a strategy that Forrester defines as “Any type of collaborative connection — enterprise-to-enterprise, person-to-person, or enterprise-to-person — facilitated by one party’s software connecting to, communicating with, or leveraging the other party’s software.”
Functionally, a digital bond allows an enterprise to ensure that all modes of technology — old and new — are speaking to one another effectively. With more digital bonds, there are fewer digital gaps, which empowers a better security posture in organizations.
An increasingly identified security gap is the issue of API insecurity, which is estimated to cost organizations up to $75 billion annually. Recently, Postman identified in their annual survey that “some 20% of respondents said API security incidents occur at least once a month at their organization, resulting in loss of data, loss of service, abuse, or inappropriate access.”
Connect your API protection
In response, you can apply your digital bonding strategy to your API security strategy. Because APIs are already connecting your business by acting as the point of communication between apps and information — including mobile and web application services — it makes sense to connect all your API protection.
Four steps to practice API security
Here’s are four steps to effectively practice API security as part of your digital bonding strategy:
- Start with visibility
- Identify the tools you have
- Make sure your tools work together
- Partner with your vendor of choice
Start with visibility
The importance of visibility extends beyond attacks to the model your organization employs to allow your users visibility and access to applications. Businesses that depend on the interconnection processes and data from their APIs need to know what APIs they expose (both externally and internally) and how they should behave.
Additionally, you’ll want your security providers to have insight into the multitudes of web application attacks, bot requests, and API requests that occur daily and can jeopardize the security of your APIs.
Identify the tools you have
Even if you partner with the right team and have the visibility you need, you’ll need to make sure your technology is working on your behalf. Your tools should:
- Provide visibility into the security state of APIs
- Detect and prevent malicious requests
- Evaluate the security of running APIs, whether that is solving for the OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities or implementing DevSecOps best practices in API development
Make sure your tools work together
Your tools should provide simple management of all known APIs. Unknown APIs — including deprecated, legacy, and outdated APIs — may be left unpatched and vulnerable. You’ll want an API discovery tool to work with an attack analysis and detection tool to detect API vulnerabilities.
Finally, you’ll need tools that protect against those attacks to work with an attack analysis tool. Even if API discovery is already critically integrated into your business, it’s worth making sure all your technology is treated similarly.
Partner with your vendor of choice
Mitigating API-related risks requires an understanding of not only the APIs themselves, but also the roles that both security vendors and your organization have in securing them. Some risk areas can only be fully addressed by developers, but security vendors can help with specific areas.
Make sure that you’re integrating not only the technology, but also the people who support your technology as well.
Learn more
If you found this information useful, you can learn more about how Akamai can help your API security strategy by seeing how we address the OWASP API security top 10 vulnerabilities.
