Application programming interfaces (APIs) are considered to be key building blocks for all kinds of web solutions and mobile apps. They are constantly raging in popularity as the component-based or modular app development practices are now more popular than building apps from scratch. APIs needless to say, allows developers to integrate multiple features and functionalities with their web and mobile app,e solutions. Thanks to APIs, developers just can utilise and integrate readily to use components in their apps.

But since the APIs are developed by other developers and are integrated as ready to use components, they also bring a lot of security and performance issues to an app. APIs are often the silent killers of app performance and a harbinger of multiple security leeks and major issues. Any leading API integration service is aware of these issues and corresponding shortcomings.

To address the performance and security issues created by APIs, the expert app developers and API integration services often recommend following some optimisation measures and practices that are effective to reduce these performance issues and security loopholes. Here we are going to explain these measures and practices. But before that let us spare a few words in listing the key security vulnerabilities created by APIs.

Key Security Risks and Vulnerabilities For APIs

APIs cause many security issues. Here we are going to describe some of the common security issues and vulnerabilities that the APIs are victims of.

• Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attacks on APIs

In most cases where the APIs stop responding and the services are completely disrupted is characteristically a Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attack. Often safeguarding the API from such DDOS attacks becomes a major challenge since

API clients receive an overwhelmingly high number of user requests. It is also challenging because the usual DDoS attack prevention tools such as CAPTCHAs are not at all effective for securing APIs from such attacks.

• Data Breaching Attacks

Data breaching attacks basically allow the attackers to access a lot of information beyond what the users are permitted to by using the APIs. Such attacks are of different types and they can be active in the context of mobile apps as well as websites and web ready enterprise solutions. The APIs are in such cases are utilised by remote bots to force accessing the URLs for retrieving data. According to experts, APIs are most vulnerable to such attacks.

• Non-SQL Query Injection

The database technology over the years has evolved and there are many apps that prefer using No-SQL data stores as well as caching servers to provide data to the clients. These datastores are equally vulnerable to injection attacks just like the so-called traditional servers running SQL databases. The biggest drawback of these database frameworks is that they don’t come equipped with ideal sanitisation features to prevent security loopholes.

• SQL Injection

SQL Injection is considered to be one of the most common exploring methods for hackers to get unauthorised access to data. In the classic case, the attacker basically changes the API URL by injecting the SQL in the URL.

#website development #code #api #web