In order to keep digital transformation programs moving forward and to ensure the safety of critical data and services, CISOs need to assess risks quickly. APIs are the foundation of a business’s digital initiatives, therefore securing them is an imperative step.
Protecting a business from security risks with the ever-changing landscape and evolution of the risks is a challenging task, CISOs need to ensure they protect the business while achieving the required speed-to-market for important initiatives. Therefore, they cannot afford to slow down the progress of any vital programs.
Assessing the risks CISOs are presented with has become more complicated and they need to determine the value of an initiative, the risk it poses, and then how to prioritise what gets invested in security, based on those calculations.
APIs were constructed for services that share important data with customers, partners, and employees. Most mobile applications run on APIs and internet traffic consists of mainly APIs too – meaning most companies are surrounded by APIs which are constantly changing. Due to the number of APIs businesses have, it is imperative to keep them secure to keep sensitive data and information such as personal identification information, financial data, and medical records from getting into attackers’ hands. If these APIs are accessed by hackers, customers may lose trust in a business and the reputation of said business will be tarnished.
With all of these evident risks, CISOs need to prioritise their API security and ensure it is done effectively.
How do they do this? Is their current IT security solution not good enough?
Unfortunately, the traditional solutions that currently exist are not able to keep up with API security needs as traditional solutions are built for already known paths and only view one transaction at a time. APIs are unique and in order to keep them secure, the security team needs to be able to see all of the activity at once.
In order for CISOs to effectively protect their business from API attacks, they need a solution with the following capabilities:
- Automatic visibility into API traffic
- With a full view of a business’s APIs, CISOs can eliminate blind spots as the inventories are easily and instantly updated. Without visibility into API traffic, CISOs cannot identify risks and prioritise how to manage those risks.
- Continuous analysis in runtime
- CISOs need to be able to see APIs in action in order to spot potential risks or flaws, which is why it is important to have a runtime view of all APIs.
- Remediation insights for proactive security
- Remediation insights help bring your findings back to be able to develop more insights into hardening APIs and where certain aspects can be improved upon.
Salt Security has leading API security solutions to help CISOs prepare for unwanted attacks. If you are interested in finding out more about the solutions, contact us so that we can assist with your personalised API security solution.
