What is API Discovery?
API discovery is the ongoing process of identifying and cataloging all internal and external APIs within an organization. As IT environments become more complex with microservices and third-party integrations, API discovery provides full visibility into all APIs, including forgotten or undocumented ones. This process is the foundational step for comprehensive API security and management.
API discovery provides visibility into the following types of APIs:
- Managed APIs: APIs that are properly documented, secured, and controlled by the organization.
- Shadow APIs: Undocumented or unauthorized APIs deployed without formal IT oversight. They pose significant security and compliance risks because they are not properly managed.
- Zombie APIs: Older, deprecated, or abandoned APIs that are still running and accessible. These forgotten endpoints can contain unpatched vulnerabilities.
- Internal vs. external APIs: Differentiating between APIs used only within the organization versus those exposed to external partners and the public.
API discovery is important for:
- Improved security: By identifying all APIs, organizations can spot hidden vulnerabilities and enforce consistent security policies, protecting against unauthorized access, data leaks, and other cyber threats.
- Risk mitigation: Discovering shadow and zombie APIs allows security teams to take inventory of their true attack surface and address risks before they can be exploited.
- Enhanced compliance: Many data privacy regulations require an inventory of all systems that handle sensitive data. API discovery provides the visibility needed to meet these audit and compliance requirements.
- Accelerated development: Developers can find and reuse existing APIs instead of building redundant functionality from scratch. This improves efficiency and time-to-market.
- Better governance: An accurate, centralized API catalog allows organizations to enforce clear governance policies, track API usage, and manage the entire API lifecycle, from creation to retirement.
In this article:
1. Managed APIs
Managed APIs are those that are formally documented, actively monitored, and governed through standardized processes. They typically reside in API gateways or directories and follow defined lifecycle practices, from design and development to versioning, deprecation, and retirement. These APIs undergo security assessments, include authentication and authorization mechanisms, and are subject to usage monitoring and rate limiting.
Effective discovery of managed APIs focuses on catalog accuracy and integration with enterprise governance tools. Visibility into these APIs allows organizations to track performance, enforce compliance, and align usage with business goals. Discovery platforms can enhance management by linking APIs to metadata such as owners, SLAs, and usage statistics, enabling proactive maintenance and policy enforcement.
2. Shadow APIs
Shadow APIs are undocumented or unofficial APIs that operate outside standard processes, often spun up by development teams to support specific projects or features. These APIs may not undergo rigorous security checks or lifecycle management, making them an attractive target for attackers. Discovering shadow APIs is challenging, as they are not typically registered in official inventories or documentation, but is critical to maintaining control over the organization’s API surface area.
Shadow APIs can lead to unpredictable integration issues, inconsistent data flows, and regulatory violations, especially if they handle sensitive information. Discovery processes—such as scanning network traffic and analyzing logs—can reveal such hidden endpoints. By bringing shadow APIs under centralized governance, organizations reduce their security and compliance risks, avoid operational blind spots, and enforce best practices across the software development lifecycle.
3. Zombie APIs
Zombie APIs are obsolete or deprecated APIs that remain accessible despite no longer serving an intended purpose. These often result from previous versions of an application or left-behind integrations following system migrations and upgrades. Because they are forgotten or ignored, zombie APIs can expose vulnerabilities, act as backdoors to sensitive systems, and create opportunities for attackers to exploit outdated logic or weak authentication.
Discovering and decommissioning zombie APIs is essential for maintaining an accurate and secure API inventory. Leaving such endpoints unattended increases technical debt and reduces overall infrastructure hygiene. Managed discovery processes identify zombie APIs based on usage analytics, code inspections, and monitoring tools, enabling organizations to safely retire or isolate them before they can be leveraged in attacks.
4. Internal APIs
Internal APIs are for use within an organization and are not exposed to external developers or partners. These APIs facilitate communication among internal applications and services, enabling developers to build, scale, and update systems in a modular fashion. Discovering internal APIs helps organizations identify integration points, ensure appropriate access controls are in place, and keep development teams informed about the tools and resources available within the company’s technology ecosystem.
Missing or outdated records of internal APIs can lead to redundant development efforts or increased technical debt. By systematically cataloging all internal APIs, teams can optimize system architecture, streamline maintenance, and align software initiatives with business needs. Additionally, visibility into internal APIs is the first step in applying consistent monitoring, versioning, and deprecation policies, all of which are essential for secure and reliable enterprise API management.
5. External APIs
External or third-party APIs are delivered by external vendors, partners, or service providers. Organizations use these APIs to integrate outside functionality—such as payment processing, social media interactions, or cloud services—into their applications. Discovery of third-party APIs is essential for understanding the external data flows and dependencies within an enterprise architecture. It also enables organizations to administer access controls, monitor service level agreements (SLAs), and ensure contractual compliance.
Failure to monitor third-party APIs can introduce significant security and privacy risks, especially when these interfaces touch sensitive data or drive business-critical workflows. A discovery process identifies all third-party integrations, assesses their trustworthiness, and promotes proactive vulnerability management. In addition, it allows IT teams to respond quickly to changes in vendor offerings, deprecated endpoints, or emerging security concerns in external services.
Related content: Read our guide to application security.
Manual API discovery involves reviewing documentation, code, and infrastructure records to find and catalog APIs. This process may work for small organizations but quickly becomes impractical at scale. Manual methods are prone to errors and oversights, especially as modern development introduces APIs at a rapid pace, often as part of CI/CD pipelines or cloud-native deployments. As a result, critical endpoints can be missed, and the inventory rapidly becomes outdated.
Automated API discovery leverages network analysis, code scanning, log aggregation, and machine learning techniques to automatically identify and map APIs in real-time. These tools continuously monitor environments for new or changed interfaces, correlating multiple data sources to maintain a dynamic and up-to-date API inventory. They can uncover hidden or shadow APIs, alert teams to anomalies, and provide contextual insights for risk assessment, enabling more effective security and compliance enforcement.
Jeremie Ohayon
Jeremie Ohayon is a Senior Product Manager at Radware with 20 years of experience in application security and cybersecurity. Jeremie holds a Master's degree in Telecommunications, and has an abiding passion for technology and a deep understanding of the cybersecurity industry. Jeremie thrives on human exchanges and strives for excellence in a multicultural environment to create innovative cybersecurity solutions.
Tips from the Expert:
In my experience, here are tips that can help you better operationalize and enhance API discovery beyond standard practices:
1. Correlate API endpoints with identity and behavioral context: Go beyond just identifying the endpoint; map which identities (users, services) are accessing each API, under what conditions, and with what typical behavior patterns. This context can surface abuse, privilege creep, or misused credentials, especially useful for spotting compromised internal API access.
2. Use passive TLS fingerprinting to uncover hidden APIs: Many APIs, even undocumented ones, still negotiate TLS. By passively inspecting TLS fingerprints (JA3/JA4 hashes) and SNI headers on internal or outbound traffic, you can uncover rogue, deprecated, or third-party APIs not registered in your inventories, without needing to decrypt traffic.
3. Apply entropy analysis on traffic payloads to detect sensitive data leaks: Run entropy checks on outbound API payloads to spot potential leaks of secrets, credentials, or encrypted tokens, particularly in shadow APIs. This low-friction technique can catch unintentional exposures even before a full DLP inspection is set up.
4. Correlate discovery with software composition analysis (SCA) outputs: Match discovered APIs against SCA results to understand if they rely on vulnerable or deprecated libraries. This helps prioritize remediation not just by endpoint exposure but also by the quality and age of underlying dependencies, especially useful with zombie APIs.
5. Identify API drift through historical diffing and timeline tracking: Use version tracking on API schema, traffic shape, and endpoint visibility over time. Sudden changes in exposed methods or request volume often indicate accidental exposure, shadow APIs, or misconfigurations. Treat drift as a leading signal for risk.
1. Scan Traffic and Logs
The first step in API discovery is scanning network traffic and analyzing logs across all environments. Tools that monitor incoming and outgoing HTTP/S requests can detect API calls, endpoint patterns, and the protocols in use. Log analysis complements this by highlighting APIs accessed by applications, services, or users over time. This approach enables organizations to uncover undocumented or rarely used APIs that may not appear in official records.
Consistently monitoring real-time traffic and logs helps maintain a current view of the full API surface. Temporary or experimental APIs, which can pose security risks if overlooked, are more easily detected. Additionally, aggregating data from multiple monitoring sources can reveal usage anomalies or unexpected data flows, triggering further investigation and potential remediation.
2. Inspect Code and Repos
Code repositories are a rich source of information for API discovery, especially in organizations practicing DevOps or microservices architectures. Reviewing source code, configuration files, and infrastructure-as-code scripts can reveal hardcoded endpoints, environment-specific configurations, and undocumented service integrations. Automated code scanning tools are often used to scour large codebases for characteristic API patterns, such as base URLs, authentication routines, or standard HTTP methods.
By inspecting both active and legacy code repositories, organizations can uncover APIs that are in development, unmaintained, or potentially orphaned. This source-level visibility complements network and log analysis, ensuring a more comprehensive understanding of API usage and exposure. Integrating code inspection into the API discovery process helps prevent accidental shadow API deployment, supports efficient refactoring, and highlights areas requiring stricter governance.
3. Correlate and Build Inventory
Once data is collected from traffic scans, log analysis, and code inspection, the next step is correlating these findings to build a centralized and validated inventory. This involves mapping observed endpoints to known services, identifying overlaps, and resolving discrepancies. Correlation enables teams to distinguish between duplicate, redundant, or obsolete APIs, producing a consistent view that informs operational and security policies.
An up-to-date, unified inventory facilitates exhaustive risk assessments, access control, and asset management. Knowing which APIs belong to which systems, their business owners, and their integration patterns enables targeted responses to vulnerabilities or incidents. Maintaining this inventory as a living document—automatically updated via continuous monitoring—keeps all stakeholders informed and supports ongoing modernization initiatives.
4. Ongoing Monitoring
API environments are highly dynamic, with frequent changes as organizations deploy new applications or update existing ones. Ongoing monitoring is essential to ensure that the API inventory remains accurate and up-to-date. This requires continuous scanning of network flows, logs, and code repositories to detect new endpoints or unexpected changes. Automated alerts and dashboards can highlight anomalies or risks as soon as they appear, reducing the window of exposure.
Effective ongoing monitoring not only sustains compliance but also enables proactive risk management. By detecting rogue or unauthorized APIs in real time, teams can quickly isolate or remediate issues before they escalate. This continuous feedback loop strengthens governance, supports agile development workflows, and makes it possible to scale API security practices across complex enterprise environments.
API Discovery and Security Platforms
API discovery and security platforms provide automated tools for mapping, cataloging, and securing APIs across an organization’s entire infrastructure. These solutions use passive and active monitoring to detect both documented and undocumented APIs. They offer central dashboards, detailed analytics, and real-time alerts, enabling security teams to visualize the organization’s attack surface and respond to new threats as APIs evolve.
In addition to discovery, such platforms often integrate with broader security information and event management (SIEM) tools, facilitating compliance, vulnerability remediation, and incident response. They help organizations enforce access controls and validate security posture continuously. This integrated approach ensures that even as APIs proliferate across multicloud, hybrid, and containerized environments, the attack surface remains visible and manageable.
API Marketplaces and Directories
API marketplaces and directories are public or private hubs where APIs are registered, listed, and made available for discovery by internal or external developers. These platforms facilitate the publication and management of APIs, allowing teams to share endpoints, documentation, and usage policies within controlled environments. They streamline integration workflows by providing search, subscription, and analytics features for consumers.
For organizations, adopting internal API directories helps enforce governance by ensuring all APIs—whether internal or external—are cataloged, documented, and on-boarded centrally. This improves transparency, eliminates duplication, and fosters reusability, making it easier for teams to find and leverage existing APIs rather than rebuilding similar functions. Directories also support lifecycle management, versioning, and visibility into consumption patterns.
API Specification, Design, and Documentation Tools
API specification, design, and documentation tools automate the creation and maintenance of API schemas, documentation, and test harnesses. These solutions allow developers to define endpoints, methods, and data structures in standardized formats. These tools validate adherence to design guidelines, check for missing parameters, and generate interactive reference documentation, making API consumption more reliable.
Integrating specification and documentation tools into the development lifecycle not only accelerates discovery and onboarding, but also helps synchronize teams around a single source of truth. Machine-readable specifications make it easier to verify implementations, automate testing, and support continuous integration workflows. Well-documented APIs are also more easily discovered by internal and external consumers, reducing the likelihood of rogue or duplicated endpoints.
1. Maintain a Centralized, Continuously Updated API Inventory
A centralized API inventory serves as the authoritative system of record for all APIs used within an organization. Keeping this inventory continuously updated ensures visibility over all integration points, enables efficient governance, and lays the foundation for compliance with regulatory requirements. Automated tools should be leveraged to synchronize the inventory with real-time changes across network traffic, code repositories, and cloud environments.
Regular audits to reconcile the inventory with observable data—such as usage analytics, monitoring logs, and code scans—reduce the risk of overlooked endpoints. This transparency not only supports effective security management but also streamlines application modernization, migration, and retiring of legacy systems. Up-to-date inventories also aid in post-incident investigations and vulnerability assessments.
2. Integrate Discovery Into CI/CD Pipelines
Integrating API discovery into continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines ensures APIs are cataloged and reviewed as soon as they are created or updated. Automation at this stage catches shadow APIs, configuration errors, and compliance issues before they reach production. Code scanning, artifact inspection, and automated inventory synchronization should be part of build and release workflows to maintain consistency.
Making API discovery a standard component of CI/CD processes enforces best practices across all development teams, regardless of project scope or velocity. Feedback from the discovery process can trigger security checks, enforce policies, or prompt remediation of risky APIs before broader deployment. This reduces the technical debt associated with undocumented or unapproved endpoints and improves overall software delivery quality.
3. Monitor Hosts and Subdomains to Prevent Rogue Endpoints
Continuous monitoring of hosts, subdomains, and DNS records is essential for identifying unauthorized or misconfigured API endpoints. Rogue or forgotten endpoints often appear as subdomains or on infrastructure spun up for short-term projects, and they pose significant security risks if left unmanaged. Tools that scan DNS records, SSL certificates, and exposed services help detect and catalog such resources.
Routine monitoring enables rapid response to new or suspicious endpoints, reducing the time attackers may have to exploit vulnerabilities. Integrating this monitoring into both the discovery process and ongoing operational oversight helps close gaps in visibility. This is especially important in large, distributed, or cloud-centric organizations where assets are frequently provisioned and retired.
4. Map APIs to Business Functions
Mapping APIs to specific business functions ensures each endpoint is well understood, properly owned, and appropriately governed. This business-to-technology linkage clarifies which APIs are mission-critical, who is responsible for their maintenance, and what the operational impact would be if they changed or failed. Effective mapping enables better prioritization of risk management, audit, and incident response resources.
Organizations should maintain metadata about each API, documenting its purpose, related applications, data sensitivity, and business stakeholders. This approach improves planning for API versioning, migration, and deprecation. It also facilitates cross-team collaboration by making it easier for stakeholders to discover and evaluate APIs in the context of their business processes.
5. Foster Developer Awareness and Provide Tooling
Developer awareness is critical to preventing the proliferation of shadow and zombie APIs. Training developers on the risks of undocumented endpoints, secure API design principles, and the organization’s discovery tools extends governance to the earliest stages of the software lifecycle. Awareness enables teams to avoid security pitfalls and adhere to policies when creating, exposing, or consuming APIs.
Providing intuitive discovery, design, and documentation tools further empowers developers to register APIs, keep inventories updated, and align with security and compliance requirements. Self-service portals, integrated code scanners, and one-click publishing features improve the developer experience and reduce friction. Supporting a culture of shared responsibility for API visibility not only streamlines discovery, but also ensures that security is embedded in every phase of the development process.
Several Radware solutions carry out API discovery and protection as part of their core capabilities:
Cloud Application Protection Service
Radware’s Cloud Application Protection Service provides an integrated framework for API discovery, protection, and governance. It automatically identifies active and shadow APIs across environments, classifies them by exposure and sensitivity, and applies tailored security policies to each. Using AI-driven behavioral analytics, it detects anomalies such as unauthorized calls, schema deviations, and data-leak patterns in API traffic. The service consolidates multiple modules—WAF, API protection, bot management, and DDoS mitigation—under a single platform, giving security teams unified visibility into both known and unmanaged APIs while maintaining business continuity across web and mobile applications.
Cloud WAF Service
The Cloud WAF Service enhances API discovery through continuous inspection of web and API traffic. It validates requests against API specifications such as OpenAPI or Swagger, detects unknown endpoints, and automatically adjusts protection rules as new APIs appear. The service protects APIs against injection, parameter tampering, and access-control abuse by enforcing context-aware policies and positive security models. Its adaptive learning engine minimizes false positives while maintaining compliance and visibility, enabling organizations to secure dynamic, microservices-based applications without slowing down development pipelines.
Bot Manager
Radware Bot Manager supports API discovery by revealing automated interactions with undocumented or shadow APIs that often evade traditional monitoring. Through advanced behavioral analysis, device fingerprinting, and intent classification, it distinguishes legitimate API clients from malicious automation targeting business logic or sensitive data. The solution blocks credential-stuffing, scraping, and enumeration attempts at the API layer while maintaining frictionless user experiences. Its analytics dashboards also help organizations visualize API consumption patterns, highlighting where exposure or abuse is most likely to occur—an important by-product of continuous API visibility and governance.
Cloud Network Analytics & Threat Intelligence
Radware’s Cloud Network Analytics and Threat Intelligence Subscriptions extend API discovery by providing a macro-level view of API traffic flows and potential attack sources across hybrid environments. By correlating telemetry from Radware’s global mitigation network with customer traffic, these tools identify abnormal API usage spikes or attempted exploit campaigns in real time. Enriched with threat-intelligence feeds from Radware’s ERT Active Attackers database, the analytics layer helps organizations map exposure, prioritize risk, and enhance API protection strategies based on current attack patterns and observed behavior in the wider threat landscape.
Best practices for compliance:
- Deploy firewalls or equivalent network security controls at all perimeter and internal boundaries
- Define and document rules for allowed and denied traffic
- Restrict inbound and outbound access to only what is necessary for business operations
- Regularly review and test firewall and router configurations
- Maintain up-to-date network diagrams and data flow diagrams
- Segment cardholder data environment (CDE) from untrusted networks
- Secure wireless networks with encryption and strong authentication
Requirement 2: Secure Configurations and No Vendor Defaults
Organizations must avoid using default passwords, security parameters, or settings on any system components within the cardholder data environment. Default settings are widely known and easily exploitable, so all devices, systems, and applications must be hardened using secure configurations tailored to the organization’s risks and operational requirements.
Best practices for compliance:
- Change all vendor-supplied defaults before system installation
- Disable or remove unnecessary services and accounts
- Use configuration standards based on industry best practices (e.g., CIS Benchmarks)
- Regularly review and validate secure configuration baselines
- Apply configuration management tools to enforce consistent hardening
- Limit administrative access and require secure authentication for management interfaces
Requirement 3: Protecting Stored Cardholder Data
This requirement focuses on minimizing the storage of cardholder data and ensuring that if it must be retained, it is rendered unreadable to unauthorized individuals. Controls include strong encryption of all stored cardholder data, truncation and masking of primary account numbers (PAN), and strict processes for data retention and deletion. Only entities with valid business needs may store cardholder information, and data must be disposed of securely when no longer required.
Best practices for compliance:
- Minimize data storage to the least amount necessary for business
- Use strong cryptography (e.g., AES-256) to encrypt stored cardholder data
- Mask PAN when displayed (e.g., show only last 4 digits)
- Document and enforce retention and disposal policies
- Store encryption keys securely and separate from encrypted data
- Monitor access to sensitive data and encryption systems
Requirement 4: Strong Cryptography in Data Transmission
PCI DSS mandates that cardholder data transmitted across open, public networks must be protected by strong encryption and secure protocols. Technologies such as TLS (transport layer security) are required for all transmissions over the internet or between untrusted networks. Weak or obsolete protocols such as SSL and early versions of TLS must not be used, and clear documentation must map data flows, encryption solutions, and key management processes.
Best practices for compliance:
- Use strong encryption (e.g., TLS 1.2 or higher) for all transmissions over public networks
- Avoid deprecated protocols such as SSL and early TLS
- Validate the effectiveness and configuration of encryption tools
- Maintain current documentation of all data flows involving cardholder data
- Secure wireless transmissions using WPA2 or stronger, and require authentication
- Monitor and alert on unauthorized or unencrypted data transfers
Requirement 5: Anti-Malware and System Protection
Organizations must deploy anti-malware solutions across all systems, particularly those commonly affected by malicious software. Automated updates, continuous monitoring, and regular scanning help maintain the effectiveness of these controls in blocking known threats. PCI DSS also requires organizations to document and review the effectiveness of anti-malware safeguards and to adapt them as new attack techniques emerge.
Best practices for compliance:
- Install anti-malware software on all systems commonly affected by malware
- Enable automatic updates and real-time scanning
- Schedule regular malware scans and generate reports for review
- Document and assess the effectiveness of anti-malware tools
- Implement compensating controls for systems not supporting traditional anti-malware
- Train users to recognize and report potential malware threats
Requirement 6: Secure Development and Patch Management
PCI DSS requires organizations to establish secure software development practices and promptly apply critical security patches to all system components. This includes using secure coding standards, reviewing code for vulnerabilities, and performing security testing throughout the software lifecycle. Developers must be trained on secure development, and organizations must track and address new vulnerabilities as they are discovered.
Best practices for compliance:
- Follow secure coding standards (e.g., OWASP, SEI CERT)
- Conduct code reviews and automated security testing
- Apply security patches promptly, especially for critical vulnerabilities
- Maintain a vulnerability management program to identify and address new threats
- Document change management and testing procedures
- Provide secure development training for developers and testers
Requirement 7: Access Controls Based on Business Need
This requirement enforces the principle of least privilege within the cardholder data environment. Access to systems and data must be limited strictly according to business requirements, ensuring that only authorized personnel can perform tasks relevant to their roles. Access rights must be formally approved, documented, and reviewed regularly to prevent privilege creep or the retention of access by former employees.
Best practices for compliance:
- Define and document access requirements based on role and business function
- Use role-based access control (RBAC) to enforce least privilege
- Approve and review access rights periodically
- Revoke access immediately upon employee termination or role change
- Enforce separation of duties for sensitive operations
- Maintain audit logs of access provisioning and changes
Requirement 8: Authentication and Unique Identification
All users, whether employees, contractors, or vendors, must be uniquely identified and authenticated before accessing any cardholder data systems. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is required for remote access and for all users in environments where cardholder data is accessible. Unique IDs (not shared accounts) enable accountability and ensure actions can be traced to individual users.
Best practices for compliance:
- Assign unique IDs to every user with system access
- Enforce password complexity and change requirements
- Use multi-factor authentication (MFA) for remote and administrative access
- Prohibit the use of shared, group, or generic accounts
- Lock accounts after repeated failed login attempts
- Regularly review authentication mechanisms for effectiveness
Requirement 9: Physical Security of Cardholder Data
PCI DSS addresses the risk of physical compromise through the requirement for strong physical access controls. This means restricting entry to sensitive areas, securing servers and media, and using access logs to monitor who enters and exits locations where cardholder data can be accessed or stored. Surveillance cameras, access badges, visitor logs, and locked containers are among the expected controls.
Best practices for compliance:
- Restrict physical access to CDEs to authorized personnel only
- Implement access controls such as key cards, badges, or biometric systems
- Use surveillance cameras to monitor sensitive areas
- Secure media containing cardholder data in locked cabinets or safes
- Maintain visitor logs and verify identity before granting access
- Conduct periodic physical security reviews and remove outdated access rights
Requirement 10: Logging and Monitoring Access
Organizations handling cardholder data must implement logging and monitoring of access to the cardholder data environment. Audit trails should capture all access, changes, and privileged operations, enabling the timely detection of suspicious activity or policy violations. Ensuring logs are tamper-proof and regularly reviewed helps organizations spot incidents early and supports forensic investigations.
Best practices for compliance:
- Enable detailed logging of access, changes, and administrative actions
- Use centralized log servers and SIEM tools for aggregation and analysis
- Review logs daily for critical systems and incidents
- Protect logs from unauthorized access and tampering
- Retain logs for at least 12 months, with three months immediately available
- Set alerts for key security events, such as failed logins or privilege escalation
Requirement 11: Regular Testing of Systems and Processes
To ensure controls are effective, PCI DSS requires organizations to regularly test network defenses, system components, and operational processes. This includes running internal and external vulnerability scans, penetration testing, and the use of file integrity monitoring solutions to detect unauthorized changes. The goal is to proactively identify gaps or weaknesses before attackers can exploit them.
Best practices for compliance:
- Perform quarterly internal and external vulnerability scans
- Conduct annual penetration testing or after significant changes
- Implement file integrity monitoring to detect unauthorized changes
- Use automated tools to validate system configurations and defenses
- Track and remediate vulnerabilities in a timely manner
- Document testing results and remediation efforts for audit purposes
Requirement 12: Information Security Policies and Governance
A documented information security policy is the backbone of PCI DSS compliance. The policy must be communicated to all relevant staff and address security roles, responsibilities, and procedures for maintaining the security of cardholder data environments. Senior management must be engaged to provide oversight and ensure resources are allocated appropriately.
Best practices for compliance:
- Develop and maintain a formal, documented security policy
- Ensure the policy is reviewed annually and updated as needed
- Communicate security roles and responsibilities to all staff
- Provide regular security awareness training for employees
- Maintain an incident response plan and test it at least annually
- Include third-party service providers in risk and compliance assessments
Failing to comply with PCI DSS carries immediate and long-term risks. In the event of a payment card data breach, organizations may face financial penalties from payment brands, remediation costs for investigations and restitution, and the expense of credit monitoring for affected customers. Serious cases can lead to the suspension or revocation of payment processing rights.
Longer-term consequences include reputational harm, legal action from customers or partners, and persistent increased scrutiny from regulatory bodies. The public disclosure of non-compliance is likely to erode customer trust and can drive away business, making recovery difficult.
Uri Dorot
Uri Dorot is a senior product marketing manager at Radware, specializing in application protection solutions, service and trends. With a deep understanding of the cyber threat landscape, Uri helps companies bridge the gap between complex cybersecurity concepts and real-world outcomes.
Tips from the Expert:
In my experience, here are tips that can help you better leverage WAAP solutions:
1. Use edge-based rate limiting for API protection: Implement rate limiting at the edge of your network rather than at the application layer. This reduces the risk of DDoS attacks overwhelming your backend systems and ensures quicker response times for legitimate users.
2. Use content-aware DLP (Data Loss Prevention) within WAAP: Integrate content-aware DLP to monitor API traffic for sensitive data leakage. This prevents unintended data exposure, particularly in scenarios where APIs handle sensitive PII, financial, or healthcare data.
3. Implement API sandboxing for untrusted requests: Route untrusted or anomalous API requests through an API sandbox before processing them. This containment strategy helps mitigate risks from unvalidated inputs, preventing potential exploits from reaching your core application logic.
4. Integrate WAAP with SIEM for enhanced visibility: Connect your WAAP logs with a Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) system. This integration enhances threat detection and provides a consolidated view of application security events, helping identify complex attack patterns across multiple layers.
5. Enable TLS inspection for comprehensive protection: Ensure that WAAP solutions are configured to decrypt and inspect HTTPS traffic. Attackers often hide malicious payloads within encrypted traffic, and without TLS inspection, these threats may bypass standard detection mechanisms.
By adopting the following guidelines, organizations can make it easier to comply with and maintain PCI DSS requirements.
1. Maintain and Test Firewalls Regularly
Organizations must establish and maintain firewalls and network security controls that segment cardholder data from less secure environments. Firewall rules must be documented, reviewed, and tested at regular intervals to ensure only necessary network traffic is allowed.
Regular penetration testing, vulnerability scanning, and change management reviews are critical. These confirm that firewalls remain effective as network environments evolve.
2. Implement Strong Authentication Mechanisms
Strong authentication goes beyond simple passwords. Organizations should adopt multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all access to cardholder data systems, especially for remote users and administrators. Each user must have a unique ID, and shared accounts should be eliminated to ensure accountability.
Password complexity, rotation policies, and automatic session timeouts also contribute to robust authentication. Regular audits of authentication systems are necessary to detect weaknesses or unauthorized access.
3. Encrypt All Sensitive Data in Storage and Transit
All payment card data must be protected using industry-approved encryption at rest and in transit. Solutions must use strong algorithms and keys, with processes for secure key management, periodic rotation, and limiting access to cryptographic resources. Encryption should be applied end-to-end, including for data stored in backups or transmitted over internal and external networks.
Regular reviews of encryption implementations and strategies for minimizing clear-text data exposure help reduce opportunities for data theft.
4. Limit Access Based on Least Privilege
Organizations should only grant access to cardholder systems and data on a strict need-to-know basis. Access privileges must be aligned with specific job roles and reviewed regularly to identify and remove unused or excessive permissions. Automated provisioning and deprovisioning can ensure timely updates when staff roles change.
Documenting access requests and ensuring approvals are consistently recorded increases control over who can interact with sensitive payment data.
5. Establish Continuous Monitoring and Auditing
Continuous monitoring tools are necessary to detect and respond to suspicious activities promptly. SIEM platforms and real-time alerting systems should aggregate logs from all relevant sources, including firewalls, servers, applications, and endpoints. Automated alerts for anomalous behavior enable rapid investigation and response.
Frequent auditing of logs and security events should be part of regular operations. Scheduled reviews and custom threat detection rules help organizations adapt to new attack techniques and regulatory expectations.
6. Keep All Systems Patched and Updated
Maintaining up-to-date systems is critical for closing security gaps exploited in payment card breaches. Organizations need structured patch management processes to quickly identify, test, and deploy patches for vulnerabilities in operating systems, applications, and network devices. Delays in patching can leave organizations exposed.
Change control processes, combined with automated vulnerability scanning and patch deployment tools, help ensure timely updates and reduce the risk of missing critical fixes.
7. Conduct Regular Training for Staff
Security awareness is a core requirement for PCI DSS and a foundational element of strong payment card data protection. Regular, role-appropriate training educates staff on handling cardholder data securely, recognizing potential threats, and responding to security incidents. Training content should be updated to reflect new risks, such as social engineering tactics or phishing attempts.
Organizations should document participation and effectiveness of security training, linking it to overall compliance and risk mitigation goals.
Supporting PCI DSS Compliance with Radware
Radware provides a comprehensive solution suite that help ensure compliance with stringent new PCI DSS 4 compliance and customer security requirements:
Cloud Application Protection Services
Radware’s Cloud Application Protection Services provide a unified solution for comprehensive web application and API protection, bot management, client-side protection, and application-level DDoS protection. Leveraging Radware SecurePath™, an innovative API-based cloud architecture, it ensures consistent, top-grade security across any cloud environment with centralized visibility and management. This service protects digital assets and customer data across on-premise, virtual, private, public, and hybrid cloud environments, including Kubernetes. It addresses over 150 known attack vectors, including the OWASP Top 10 Web Application Security Risks, Top 10 API Security Vulnerabilities, and Top 21 Automated Threats to Web Applications. The solution employs a unique positive security model and machine-learning analysis to reduce exposure to zero-day attacks by 99%. Additionally, it distinguishes between “good” and “bad” bots, optimizing bot management policies to enhance user experience and ROI. Radware’s service also ensures reduced latency, no route changes, and no SSL certificate sharing, providing increased uptime and seamless protection as businesses grow and evolve.
Cloud WAF
Radware’s Alteon Integrated WAF ensures fast, reliable and secure delivery of mission-critical Web applications and APIs for corporate networks and in the cloud. Recommended by the NSS, certified by ICSA Labs, and PCI compliant, this WAF solution combines positive and negative security models to provide complete protection against web application attacks, access violations, attacks disguised behind CDNs, API manipulations, advanced HTTP attacks (such as slowloris and dynamic floods), brute force attacks on log-in pages and more.
Bot Manager
Radware Bot Manager is a multiple award-winning bot management solution designed to protect web applications, mobile apps, and APIs from the latest AI-powered automated threats. Utilizing advanced techniques such as Radware’s patented Intent-based Deep Behavior Analysis (IDBA), semi-supervised machine learning, device fingerprinting, collective bot intelligence, and user behavior modeling, it ensures precise bot detection with minimal false positives. Bot Manager provides AI-based real-time detection and protection against threats such as ATO (account takeover), DDoS, ad and payment fraud, and web scraping. With a range of mitigation options (like Crypto Challenge), Bot Manager ensures seamless website browsing for legitimate users without relying on CAPTCHAs while effectively thwarting bot attacks. Its AI-powered correlation engine automatically analyzes threat behavior, shares data throughout security modules and blocks bad source IPs, providing complete visibility into each attack.
Account Takeover (ATO) Protection
Radware Bot Manager protects against Account Takeover attacks, and offers robust protection against unauthorized access to user accounts across web portals, mobile applications, and APIs. Utilizing advanced techniques such as Intent-based Deep Behavior Analysis (IDBA), semi-supervised machine learning, device fingerprinting, and user behavior modeling, it ensures precise bot detection with minimal false positives. The solution provides comprehensive defense against brute force and credential stuffing attacks, and offers flexible bot management options including blocking, CAPTCHA challenges, and feeding fake data. With a scalable infrastructure and a detailed dashboard, Radware Bot Manager delivers real-time insights into bot traffic, helping organizations safeguard sensitive data, maintain user trust, and prevent financial fraud.
API Protection
Radware’s API Protection solution is designed to safeguard APIs from a wide range of cyber threats, including data theft, data manipulation, and account takeover attacks. This AI-driven solution automatically discovers all API endpoints, including rogue and shadow APIs, and learns their structure and business logic. It then generates tailored security policies to provide real-time detection and mitigation of API attacks. Key benefits include comprehensive coverage against OWASP API Top 10 risks, real-time embedded threat defense, and lower false positives, ensuring accurate protection without disrupting legitimate operations.
Client-Side Protection
Radware’s Client-Side Protection solution is designed to secure end users from attacks embedded in the application supply chain, such as Magecart, formjacking, and DOM XSS. It provides continuous visibility into third-party scripts and services running on the browser side of applications, ensuring real-time activity tracking and threat-level assessments. This solution complies with PCI-DSS 4.0 requirements, helping to protect sensitive customer data and maintain organizational reputation. Key features include blocking untrusted destinations and malicious scripts without disrupting legitimate JavaScript services, monitoring HTTP headers and payment pages for manipulation attempts, and providing end-to-end protection against supply chain exploits.