Contents
What are the security concerns of a REST API?
REST typically uses HTTP as its underlying protocol, which brings forth the usual set of security concerns: A potential attacker has full control over every single bit of an HTTP request or HTTP response.
What happens if an API key is disabled?
Even if an API key (or access token) used for application authentication is disabled, a key can easily be reacquired through a standard browser request. Therefore, invalidating a current access token is not a long-term solution.
What’s the best way to secure your APIs?
Whether an organization has a dozen or hundreds of publicly available APIs, it must first be aware of them in order to secure and manage them. Surprisingly, many are not. Conduct perimeter scans to discover and inventory your APIs, and then work with DevOps teams to manage them. Use a strong authentication and authorization solution.
Are there any downsides to using an API?
The downside of publicly available web APIs is that they can potentially pose great risk to API providers. By design, APIs give outsiders access to your data: behind every API, there is an endpoint —the server (and its supporting databases) that responds to API requests (see Figure 1).
Are there any security concerns with the rest protocol?
Security concerns with REST. REST typically uses HTTP as its underlying protocol, which brings forth the usual set of security concerns: A potential attacker has full control over every single bit of an HTTP request or HTTP response.
Can a DoS attack render a REST API non functional?
In a Denial of Service (DoS) attack, the attacker in most cases pushes enormous messages requesting the server or network to establish requests consisting of invalid return addresses. The attack is capable of rendering a RESTful API into a non-functional situation if the appropriate security precautions are not adopted.
How can I prevent a DDoS attack on my Rest API?
To prevent a massive amount of API requests that can cause a DDoS attack or other misuses of the API service, apply a limit to the number of requests in a given time interval for each API (also called spike arrest). When the rate is exceeded, block access from the API key at least temporarily, and return the 429 (too many requests) HTTP error code.