Securing RestAPI is crucial as they’re often targeted by malicious attackers seeking to exploit vulnerabilities.
A single breach can lead to data leaks, financial loss, and damage to your reputation.
In this article, we’ll cover key steps to safeguard your APIs and keep your systems protected.
Table of Contents
The Rise of RestAPI and Security Implications
API and microservices are now the de facto method for developing applications.
All modern applications, regardless of size, are likely using APIs to separate out the application and UI layers.
Companies are also taking legacy applications and breaking up the product into much smaller manageable pieces.
Since the nature of API is to seamlessly serve data to a variety of front-end services, making sure to follow some basic security rules is very important.
There are a number of Web API methods, such as Representative State Transfer (REST), Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), and Remove Procedure Call.
However, most modern applications are now using REST, which has become the de-facto model.
Over the past few years, REST has become the de facto standard for web applications.
While there are some benefits to SOAP, such as built-in stateful operation and, depending on the business requirements, stateful operation, most SOAP implementations have been implemented to support legacy applications.
REST, on the other hand, can be found in a number of modern implementations due to its ease of use. Almost all public APIs are currently being developed using REST.
The implementation is easier since it allows URL response, and there are a number of tools on the market that can help with your implementation.
Even though REST is stateless, it is well suited for applications that require contestant back and forth between the client and server.
This is mainly due to the way that REST allows retries from clients without interrupting the service.
However, API’s do share some of the same security considerations as a standard web application, there are some unique scenarios and steps you need to take to secure your API.
Accessibility
One of the most basic steps you can take is to ensure all your API calls are done via HTTPS and not through clear text HTTP.
This ensures that any parameters that you pass through to the back-end server are secure.
Authorization
A lot of times, authorization is confused with access.
However, they are completely different concepts.
Access gives the user the key to get into the API, while authorization gives access level control to control what the user can do within the API.
Setting granular permissions and controlling authorization is very important to establishing good security.
Custom authentication software can help with this.
Access Control
There are a number of ways to set up access to the API.
However, Oauth has become the de facto standard.
While you can certainly use standard usernames and passwords, your API connection could break if passwords expire or are changed.
Most APIs are served over standard HTTP protocol.
Parameter Validation
One of the most important steps in securing your API is to validate all incoming traffic to the API.
This can be done through Whitelists or typing, among other popular methods.
The key factor here is to reduce the footprint where potential attackers can compromise your API.
Cross-Site Request Forgery Attack
CSRF protection is generally not necessary in an API environment as long as the party connecting to the API is not a browser.
If they are browser-based, such as clients using standard usernames and passwords, then CSRF is important to implement.
This is something we always take into consideration when developing mobile apps.
API Injections
API injections are when malicious code is passed through a normal request to bypass security either using cross-site scripting (XSS) or SQL Injection (SQLi).
Malicious scripts are passed to APIs that don’t perform the necessary security checks.
These attacks can also pass SQL commands and get full access to the underlying database tables.
If requests are not sanitized correctly, hackers can easily pass malicious code to the API.
Conclusion
Securing RestAPI is not just a recommendation; it’s a necessity.
As REST continues to be the standard for modern applications, it’s essential to prioritize API security to prevent malicious attacks that could compromise sensitive data and disrupt services.
By following the steps outlined in this article, such as enforcing HTTPS, implementing robust authorization measures, validating input, and guarding against API injections, you can greatly reduce vulnerabilities and keep your systems safe.
Proactively addressing these security concerns will not only protect your data but also uphold the trust and confidence of your users.