Application programming interfaces (APIs) have redefined how businesses connect and scale apps for their users, customers, and partners at large. By providing a standardized interaction layer between software and systems, APIs have drastically improved how organizations consume, integrate with, and create digital experiences. But they come with inherent risk. While APIs modernize application delivery, they have become prime targets of cyberattacks and can introduce new vulnerabilities that must be accounted for. Successfully protecting apps from emerging threats requires businesses to properly manage, control, and secure this growing API layer.

Emerging API Threats

Nearly every application has at least one vulnerability or misconfiguration that affects its security.¹ The prolific rise in API use has further exacerbated this challenge—with unmanaged and ungoverned APIs introducing security loopholes and new entryways for attackers. To make matters worse, experts predict that more than 50 percent of enterprise APIs will be unmanaged by 2025 as usage continues to outpace our current management capabilities.² Without proper oversight and control in place, APIs present new avenues for threat actors to exploit to facilitate a breach, service outage, or fraud. Here’s how improper API management introduces risk:

• API Volume
  As digital transformation initiatives take hold, many infrastructure and application teams are tasked with modernizing and accelerating app delivery. As part of that strategy, a variety of APIs are introduced, but they often miss adding the needed protections, creating new areas of exposure. While rapid development cycles will continue to favor the use of more APIs, organizations may unknowingly sacrifice security for speed if governance is not at the forefront of ongoing API investments.
• Legacy Systems
  Many legacy applications and systems still rely on outdated and antiquated approaches. Keeping pace requires upgrading and managing legacy APIs alongside newly implemented ones. This can be challenging due to the time, cost, and resources required to overhaul and secure legacy systems and APIs embedded within them. While strategic projects may continue to shift focus into other areas, neglecting to manage or secure legacy systems and APIs presents additional threat vectors that are often unnoticed, under-protected, and ripe for malicious exploit.
• Limited Visibility
  From shadow IT to decentralized development teams, organizations can find themselves leveraging APIs without proper oversight and control. Independently creating and adopting them in silos creates outliers as individual teams may not consider implementing necessary best practices, security protocols, and governance standards. Without uniformity across the growing API layer, security teams cannot consistently manage or protect APIs from emerging threats, known vulnerabilities, or misuse.

Securely Managing APIs with ePlus and F5

Proper protection requires that security be a bedrock component of API development and deployment strategies. In doing so, businesses can ensure new and existing APIs are uniformly managed and secured across apps. With ePlus and F5 Distributed Cloud Services, we simplify API protection in the modern world. Our tailor-fit solutions offer comprehensive security and governance from a single SaaS platform. Proven to break down silos, mitigate threats, and centralize control, we empower organizations to maintain protection for the entirety of the application attack surface to secure apps, APIs, and critical digital services from vulnerabilities and exposure. Here’s how:

• Automated Protection
  API discovery and security offers comprehensive support for application, infrastructure, and security teams. With full-featured capabilities, businesses can automatically detect endpoints mapped to applications and generate policies based on app-to-app and API-to-API patterns. This provides deep visibility with broad-ranging protection to identify known and unknown APIs, eliminate silos, and safeguard unmanaged or decentralized APIs.
• Built-In Defense
  Effective security must span the entire API lifecycle. With built-in protection from zero-day breaches, malicious bots, and OWASP API Top 10 threats, we safeguard new and legacy apps from a wide range of sophisticated attacks. Continuously monitor for unusual activity, prevent malicious attempts, and block any dangerous or unwanted connections to rapidly identify and minimize cyber threats.
• Centralized Governance
  As API adoption continues to increase, businesses need adequate security that doesn’t compromise current or future investments. ePlus and F5 reduce the time and effort of configuring and enforcing security policies for standardized protection across the entire API layer. With centralized governance, unified configurations, and broadly enforced security policies, businesses get end-to-end visibility and control across existing and future APIs.

Ready to learn more?

Together, ePlus and F5 secure and optimize applications, APIs, and infrastructure—on premises, in the cloud, and at the edge—so our customers can deliver exceptional digital experiences. Trusted by the world’s biggest brands, our joint solutions are proven to reduce costs, improve operations, protect users, and build trust and loyalty.

To learn more about API security with ePlus and F5 Distributed Cloud Services, click here.

_{[1] Dark Reading, “Misconfigurations, Vulnerabilities Found in 95% of Applications,” Nov 2022
[2] Citing article, Cybersecurity Insiders, “Predictions for 2023 API Security”, 2023}

_{Additional blog author: Leif Rasmussen, F5 Senior Solutions Engineer, North America Channel}

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