How to Prevent Real-Time API Abuse

The widespread adoption of mobile and IoT devices, and increased use of cloud systems are driving a major change in modern application architecture. Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) have emerged as the bridge to facilitate communication between different application architectures. However, with the widespread deployment of APIs, automated attacks on poorly protected APIs are mounting. Personally Identifiable Information (PII), payment card details, and business-critical services are at risk due to automated attacks on APIs.

So what are key API vulnerabilities, and how can you protect against API abuse?

Authentication Flaws

Many APIs only check authentication status, but not if the request is coming from a genuine user. Attackers exploit such flaws through various ways (including session hijacking and account aggregation) to imitate genuine API calls. Attackers also target APIs by reverse-engineering mobile apps to discover how it calls the API. If API keys are embedded into the app, this can result in an API breach. API keys should not be used alone for user authentication.

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Lack of Robust Encryption

Many APIs lack robust encryptions between API client and API server. Attackers exploit such vulnerabilities through man-in-the-middle attacks. Attackers also intercept unencrypted or poorly protected API transactions between API client and API server to steal sensitive information or alter transaction data.

What’s more, the ubiquitous use of mobile devices, cloud systems, and microservice design patterns have further complicated API security as now multiple gateways are involved to facilitate interoperability among diverse web applications. The encryption of data flowing through all these channels is paramount.

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Business Logic Vulnerability

APIs are vulnerable to business logic abuse. Attackers make repeated and large-scale API calls on an application server or slow POST requests that result in denial of service. A DDoS attack on an API can result in massive disruption on a front-end web application.

Poor Endpoint Security

Most IoT devices and micro-service tools are programmed to communicate with their server through API channels. These devices authenticate themselves on API servers using client certificates. Hackers attempt to get control over an API from the IoT endpoint and if they succeed, they can easily re-sequence API order that can result in a data breach.

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How You Can Prevent API Abuse

A bot management solution that defends APIs against automated attacks and ensures that only genuine users have the ability to access APIs is paramount. When evaluating such a solution, consider whether it offers
broad attack detection and coverage, comprehensive reporting and analytics, and flexible deployment options.

Other steps you can (and should) take include:

• Monitor and manage API calls coming from automated scripts (bots)
• Drop primitive authentication
• Implement measures to prevent API access by sophisticated human-like bots
• Robust encryption is a must-have
• Deploy token-based rate limiting equipped with features to limit API access based on the number of IPs, sessions, and tokens
• Implement robust security on endpoints