What Are Common API Threats?
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Introduction To Common API Threats
In today’s interconnected digital landscape, application programming Interfaces (APIs) serve as the backbone of modern applications, enabling smooth efficient communication between various software services. Although API software applications are essential, they are often weak due to misconfigurations, insufficient safety measures, or lack of awareness about potential threats. These weaknesses can create opportunities for hackers to take advantage of safety gaps, leading to unauthorized access to sensitive data or systems.
As APIs become more prevalent, they also become the major goals for cybercriminals. API security is an important aspect of any cyber security strategy, as violations can cause data theft, service disruption, and financial loss. This article examines the most common API hazards, their implications and risks, and the best practices to reduce them.
API Security: A Growing Concern for Common API Threats
APIs handle sensitive data, making them an attractive goal for cyber attackers. According to Verizon’s Data Breach Investigation Report, web apps are primary targets for attacks, and APIs are now responsible for 90% of the surface of the web application attack. Unlike traditional web applications that provide controlled access to backend functions, APIs offer a more flexible gateway, which greatly increases the surface vulnerability to cyber attacks.
APIs enable large data transfers, but without proper security, they are at risk of massive data leaks. Traditional firewalls and antivirus programs often miss API-specific attacks, making it crucial to understand API threats and implement strong security measures to prevent breaches.
The Top Common API Security Threats
Broken Object-Level Authorization (BOLA)
Broken Object-Level Authorization (BOLA) is a critical API security vulnerability that allows attackers to gain unauthorized access to sensitive data. It occurs when an API fails to verify user permissions, leading to data exposure, manipulation, or unauthorized actions. Since API drives modern data exchange, Implementing strong authorization mechanisms is important to prevent BOLA attacks and secure sensitive information.
Broken User Authentication
Broken user authentication is a critical API security flaw that weakens login processes and session management, which also enables unauthorized access. Weak password policies, exposed session IDs, improper timeouts, and inadequate data encryption. These make APIs vulnerable to credential stuffing, brute-force attacks, and account acquisitions which leads to data breaches.
Injection Attacks
Injection attacks are serious cyber security threats directed at APIs, web applications, and databases. The invaders exploit input vulnerabilities to insert malicious code, compromising data integrity and system security. These attacks can cause data breaches, unauthorized access, and compromised systems. Common types include SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), command Injection, LDAP Injection, and XML Injection (XXE attack).
Excessive Data Exposure
Excessive data exposure occurs when an API reveals more data than necessary, which leads to unauthorized access, data leaks, and compliance risk. This vulnerability threatens privacy and security, especially for organizations that handle sensitive user information.
Denial-of-Service (DoS) and Rate-Limiting Issues
A distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is a cybercrime in which hackers flood an online server, network, or service with an overwhelming amount of Internet traffic, making it inaccessible to legitimate users. Unlike traditional denial of service attacks (DoS), which use a single source, DDoS attacks take advantage of various compromised devices (botnets) to amplify their impact.
Real-Life Examples of Common API Threats
A distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is a cybercrime in which hackers flood an online server, network, or service with an overwhelming amount of Internet traffic, making it inaccessible to legitimate users. Unlike traditional denial of service attacks (DoS), which use a single source, DDoS attacks take advantage of various compromised devices (botnets) to amplify their impact.
Facebook (2019) Exposure to user data:
A misconfigured API exposed 540 million user records on a third-party cloud server, leaking phone numbers, locations, and full names. The breach stemmed from Facebook’s contact import flaw, which let attackers harvest data using automated tools and random phone numbers, leading to a massive data exposure.
T-Mobile (2023) API Breach exposing customer data:
A poorly secured API allowed attackers to steal sensitive customer data, including names, billing addresses, and telephone numbers, which affected millions of users. This breach emphasized the critical need for robust API security measures to protect customer data.
Uber (2016) - Insecure Direct Object Reference (IDOR) Attack:
A misconfigured API exposed 540 million user records on a third-party cloud server, leaking phone numbers, locations, and full names. The breach stemmed from Facebook’s contact import flaw, which let attackers harvest data using automated tools and random phone numbers, leading to a massive data exposure.
How To Protect Against Common API Threats
APIs have become the backbone of modern applications, enabling seamless communication between different systems and services. However, their widespread use has also made them a main goal for cyber threats, including DDoS attacks, injection attacks, broken authentication, and excessive data exposure.
Without proper security measures, businesses risk data breaches, shutdowns, and financial losses. To safeguard the APIs, the implementation of robust authentication protocols, rate limiting, input validation, and continuous security testing is important.
Mitigation against BOLA
BOLA vulnerabilities occur when an API is exclusively dependent on user approval but fails to enforce the correct authorization control at the object level. This means that when a user is authenticated, they may be able to access or change resources they should not have permission to interact with. So the ways we tackle this are by using strong authorization checks and other practices.
Implement authorization at the object level:
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Check if the requesting user is allowed to access the specific object.
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Enforce authorization checks at each API endpoint that handles user-specific data.
Use role-based access control (RBAC) or attribute-based access control (ABAC):
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Take user roles and limit access based on predefined permits.
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Implement fine-grained access checks to ensure that only authorized users can perform certain actions.
Avoid exposing object identifiers:
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Instead of using predictable object IDs (eg./aAPIuserere/123), use Hashed or UUID-based identifiers that are more difficult to guess.
Mitigation against Injection Attacks
Injection attacks pose a serious cybersecurity threat to databases, web apps, and APIs. Common types include SQL injection, XSS, and command injection, leading to data breaches, system compromises, and financial losses. Mitigating these risks requires input validation, parameterized queries, WAFs, and secure coding practices to strengthen API security.
Validation and sanitation of input:
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Always validate the user inputs to ensure that they correspond to the expected formats.
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Sanitize inputs to remove special characters that could be used for malicious queries.
Use parameterized queries and prepared statements:
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Instead of SQL dynamic queries, use statements prepared to prevent SQL injection.
Implement Web Application Firewalls (WAFS):
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WAFs detect and block malicious payloads directed to injection vulnerabilities.
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Regularly update WAF rules to defend against new threats.
Mitigation against Excessive Data Exposure
Excessive exposure to data is a great risk to API security that can lead to data violations, compliance violations, and reputation damage. Organizations should adopt best security practices, including data filtering, access controls, encryption, and regular security audits, to prevent APIs from leaking confidential information.
Implement the proper data filtering:
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APIs should only return the necessary fields instead of complete data objects.
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Use the permissions list to specify which data can be exposed rather than sensitive fields on the blacklist.
Secure API responses:
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Mask or encrypt confidential data (eg hash passwords and mask credit card numbers).
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Do not expose details of the internal system, such as database structures or server settings.
Follow the principle of the lowest privilege (POLP):
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Grant the minimum level of access to the data required for a request.
Perform regular security audits and penetration test:
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Identify API's vulnerabilities by testing API answers to overexposed data.
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Implement automated security scans to detect excessive data leaks before subscribers.
DDoS Attack Mitigation Strategies
These attacks aim to overload a system with excessive traffic, making it inaccessible to legitimate users. As DDoS attacks become more sophisticated, organizations must adopt effective mitigation strategies -one of the most fundamental is rate limiting.
Rate Limiting ( DDoS Mitigation Technique):
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Rate limitation is a security measure that restricts the number of requests a server can process within a specific deadline. By setting a limit, websites, and applications may prevent excessive traffic from overloading the system.
Web Application Firewalls (WAFs):
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A Web Application Firewall (WAF) protects against Layer 7 DDoS attacks by filtering and blocking malicious traffic.
Anycast Network Diffusion:
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This method distributes incoming traffic across multiple servers worldwide, preventing a single server from being overwhelmed.
Black Hole Routing:
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When an attack is detected, traffic is redirected to a “null” route, discarding both legitimate and malicious requests. This is used as a last resort since it makes the network temporarily inaccessible.
AI-Powered DDoS Detection
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Advanced machine learning algorithms can detect unusual traffic patterns and block malicious requests before they impact performance.
How to Mitigate Common API Threats Effectively
These attacks aim to overload a system with excessive traffic, making it inaccessible to legitimate users. As DDoS attacks become more sophisticated, organizations must adopt effective mitigation strategies -one of the most fundamental is rate limiting.
By adopting a multi-layer security approach, companies can protect sensitive data, ensure API reliability,y and maintain compliance with industry standards.
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Implement API Security Best Practices: Secure APIs with a multiple-layer approach, integrating security measures at all stages of development.
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Strong Authentication and Authorization: Use OAuth 2.0 and JWTS for safe authentication and apply less privileged access control.
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API Gateway & Security Monitoring: Implant an API gateway for traffic management and safety and use registration tools to detect anomalies.
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Regular Safety Audits and Penetration Test: Drive frequent audits and penetration tests to identify vulnerabilities before exploitation.
Securing Against Evolving Common API Threats
APIs are essential for modern applications, but they are also the major goals of cybercriminals. Common API threats such as broken authentication, injection attacks, excessive data exposure, and DoS attacks continue to develop, leading to making API security the top priority.
Organizations should implement strong authentication, rate limiting,g, and constant security monitoring to maintain the security of sensitive data and maintain system integrity.
Prophaze for Defense Against Common API Security Threats
In the constantly evolving scenario of cybersecurity, Prophaze remains a powerful ally in protecting APIs from common threats. With its AI-oriented web application firewall, Prophaze provides real-time threat detection and mitigation, protecting APIs from OWASP’s top 10 vulnerabilities, DoS attacks, injection threats, and unauthorized access.
By leveraging automated security policies, advanced rate limitation, and behavioral analysis, Prophaze ensures that APIs remain safe without compromising performance. As companies are increasingly depending on APIs, integrating a robust security solution such as Prophaze is essential to maintaining data integrity, user confidence, and uninterrupted availability of services.
