An API-first strategy can be a competitive game changer for many businesses, but ensuring businesses stay within data security and governance requirements is critical. Companies need to adopt effective API security and data governance programs.
Shadow API is the greatest API security risk, with 31% of malicious requests targeting unknown, unmanaged, or unprotected APIs, according to the Cequence API protection report.
APIs are being deployed so fast and at such scale that companies risk both not knowing what they have (Shadow APIs), and losing control of API security, including exposing vital data and processes.
Companies are rapidly adopting APIs to improve platform integration, connectivity, and efficiency and to enable digital innovation projects. Over the last few years, API attacks have increased massively, and API security concerns continue to impede innovations.
The lack of API security is responsible for every 1 in 13 cybersecurity incidents, with annual global losses of up to $75 billion and 57% affecting American businesses.
APIs power the digital experiences of consumers today. However, as API use increases, so do security risks because APIs are easy to deploy but hard to control.
APIs are the backbone of numerous popular web services because of their utility, ubiquity, and increasing architectural choices. Regardless of the API architecture chosen, there are shared factors that make them all vulnerable.
While API security remains a major concern for most organizations, most were unprepared, with only 11% having a concrete API security strategy to detect and stop API attacks.
Report found that API security was a major concern for businesses as malicious traffic grew triple that of legitimate sources and causing delays in application rollout.
Lessons to be learned from the recent rash of API security incidents is that you need to adopt a Shield Right while you Shift Left strategy to protect yourself from API security threats.
