1 in 5 companies is now running more than 50 API services throughout their operations, whether they are using them internally as employee resources or externally, to provide services to customers. This is a problem for one reason: 30 percent of all API projects proceed through the design and planning stage without input from security, and 27 percent go to market with no security assessment or planning built in to them.
What This Means for API Designers
The overall lack of attention to security at the planning stages of API development have led to a situation where by and large, possible vulnerabilities and risks in its architecture are not even sought out or documented, much less refined and changed, until after the software is running and information is vulnerable. To change that, systemic reforms to the process of API development are needed. Those kinds of changes will take time, however, and during that transition time, many customers will still be exposed to the risks associated with this oversight.
What This Means for Companies Running APIs
Finding rugged security solutions that protect company technology is going to be integral to keeping services operating without the corrupting influence of bots or the intellectual property problems created when scrapers run wild without interference. This security will need to have the ability to detect and eliminate bot traffic, and to find and close loopholes that might be exploited. As a layer of security between the user and the service, they provide the protection that you need to be sure your legitimate customers and your employees are able to access resources successfully.
Putting it All Together
The use of bad bots to exploit technological resources is not just limited to the theft of intellectual property or hacking incidents that compromise your customers’ personal information. They also create opportunities for unethical practitioners to use your API resources themselves to perform processing work on their own behalf in a parasitic fashion. That’s why it is important to go into any API design process with a security plan, while also developing the outside resources that cut down bot traffic. That way, you have the most protection you can reasonably provide for your technology resources.
