Dylan  Iqbal

Dylan Iqbal

1634090099

Cashing in on the API Economy!

From e-commerce and loyalty programs to self-service portals and mobile apps, much of the consumer experience is stitched together with APIs. In a world where digital touchpoints are increasingly reliant on APIs, superior API product quality and capabilities deliver value. And it’s the businesses that take a consumer-centric approach to APIs who will succeed in the API economy.

#api #finance

What is GEEK

Buddha Community

Cashing in on the API Economy!

Top 10 API Security Threats Every API Team Should Know

As more and more data is exposed via APIs either as API-first companies or for the explosion of single page apps/JAMStack, API security can no longer be an afterthought. The hard part about APIs is that it provides direct access to large amounts of data while bypassing browser precautions. Instead of worrying about SQL injection and XSS issues, you should be concerned about the bad actor who was able to paginate through all your customer records and their data.

Typical prevention mechanisms like Captchas and browser fingerprinting won’t work since APIs by design need to handle a very large number of API accesses even by a single customer. So where do you start? The first thing is to put yourself in the shoes of a hacker and then instrument your APIs to detect and block common attacks along with unknown unknowns for zero-day exploits. Some of these are on the OWASP Security API list, but not all.

Insecure pagination and resource limits

Most APIs provide access to resources that are lists of entities such as /users or /widgets. A client such as a browser would typically filter and paginate through this list to limit the number items returned to a client like so:

First Call: GET /items?skip=0&take=10 
Second Call: GET /items?skip=10&take=10

However, if that entity has any PII or other information, then a hacker could scrape that endpoint to get a dump of all entities in your database. This could be most dangerous if those entities accidently exposed PII or other sensitive information, but could also be dangerous in providing competitors or others with adoption and usage stats for your business or provide scammers with a way to get large email lists. See how Venmo data was scraped

A naive protection mechanism would be to check the take count and throw an error if greater than 100 or 1000. The problem with this is two-fold:

  1. For data APIs, legitimate customers may need to fetch and sync a large number of records such as via cron jobs. Artificially small pagination limits can force your API to be very chatty decreasing overall throughput. Max limits are to ensure memory and scalability requirements are met (and prevent certain DDoS attacks), not to guarantee security.
  2. This offers zero protection to a hacker that writes a simple script that sleeps a random delay between repeated accesses.
skip = 0
while True:    response = requests.post('https://api.acmeinc.com/widgets?take=10&skip=' + skip),                      headers={'Authorization': 'Bearer' + ' ' + sys.argv[1]})    print("Fetched 10 items")    sleep(randint(100,1000))    skip += 10

How to secure against pagination attacks

To secure against pagination attacks, you should track how many items of a single resource are accessed within a certain time period for each user or API key rather than just at the request level. By tracking API resource access at the user level, you can block a user or API key once they hit a threshold such as “touched 1,000,000 items in a one hour period”. This is dependent on your API use case and can even be dependent on their subscription with you. Like a Captcha, this can slow down the speed that a hacker can exploit your API, like a Captcha if they have to create a new user account manually to create a new API key.

Insecure API key generation

Most APIs are protected by some sort of API key or JWT (JSON Web Token). This provides a natural way to track and protect your API as API security tools can detect abnormal API behavior and block access to an API key automatically. However, hackers will want to outsmart these mechanisms by generating and using a large pool of API keys from a large number of users just like a web hacker would use a large pool of IP addresses to circumvent DDoS protection.

How to secure against API key pools

The easiest way to secure against these types of attacks is by requiring a human to sign up for your service and generate API keys. Bot traffic can be prevented with things like Captcha and 2-Factor Authentication. Unless there is a legitimate business case, new users who sign up for your service should not have the ability to generate API keys programmatically. Instead, only trusted customers should have the ability to generate API keys programmatically. Go one step further and ensure any anomaly detection for abnormal behavior is done at the user and account level, not just for each API key.

Accidental key exposure

APIs are used in a way that increases the probability credentials are leaked:

  1. APIs are expected to be accessed over indefinite time periods, which increases the probability that a hacker obtains a valid API key that’s not expired. You save that API key in a server environment variable and forget about it. This is a drastic contrast to a user logging into an interactive website where the session expires after a short duration.
  2. The consumer of an API has direct access to the credentials such as when debugging via Postman or CURL. It only takes a single developer to accidently copy/pastes the CURL command containing the API key into a public forum like in GitHub Issues or Stack Overflow.
  3. API keys are usually bearer tokens without requiring any other identifying information. APIs cannot leverage things like one-time use tokens or 2-factor authentication.

If a key is exposed due to user error, one may think you as the API provider has any blame. However, security is all about reducing surface area and risk. Treat your customer data as if it’s your own and help them by adding guards that prevent accidental key exposure.

How to prevent accidental key exposure

The easiest way to prevent key exposure is by leveraging two tokens rather than one. A refresh token is stored as an environment variable and can only be used to generate short lived access tokens. Unlike the refresh token, these short lived tokens can access the resources, but are time limited such as in hours or days.

The customer will store the refresh token with other API keys. Then your SDK will generate access tokens on SDK init or when the last access token expires. If a CURL command gets pasted into a GitHub issue, then a hacker would need to use it within hours reducing the attack vector (unless it was the actual refresh token which is low probability)

Exposure to DDoS attacks

APIs open up entirely new business models where customers can access your API platform programmatically. However, this can make DDoS protection tricky. Most DDoS protection is designed to absorb and reject a large number of requests from bad actors during DDoS attacks but still need to let the good ones through. This requires fingerprinting the HTTP requests to check against what looks like bot traffic. This is much harder for API products as all traffic looks like bot traffic and is not coming from a browser where things like cookies are present.

Stopping DDoS attacks

The magical part about APIs is almost every access requires an API Key. If a request doesn’t have an API key, you can automatically reject it which is lightweight on your servers (Ensure authentication is short circuited very early before later middleware like request JSON parsing). So then how do you handle authenticated requests? The easiest is to leverage rate limit counters for each API key such as to handle X requests per minute and reject those above the threshold with a 429 HTTP response. There are a variety of algorithms to do this such as leaky bucket and fixed window counters.

Incorrect server security

APIs are no different than web servers when it comes to good server hygiene. Data can be leaked due to misconfigured SSL certificate or allowing non-HTTPS traffic. For modern applications, there is very little reason to accept non-HTTPS requests, but a customer could mistakenly issue a non HTTP request from their application or CURL exposing the API key. APIs do not have the protection of a browser so things like HSTS or redirect to HTTPS offer no protection.

How to ensure proper SSL

Test your SSL implementation over at Qualys SSL Test or similar tool. You should also block all non-HTTP requests which can be done within your load balancer. You should also remove any HTTP headers scrub any error messages that leak implementation details. If your API is used only by your own apps or can only be accessed server-side, then review Authoritative guide to Cross-Origin Resource Sharing for REST APIs

Incorrect caching headers

APIs provide access to dynamic data that’s scoped to each API key. Any caching implementation should have the ability to scope to an API key to prevent cross-pollution. Even if you don’t cache anything in your infrastructure, you could expose your customers to security holes. If a customer with a proxy server was using multiple API keys such as one for development and one for production, then they could see cross-pollinated data.

#api management #api security #api best practices #api providers #security analytics #api management policies #api access tokens #api access #api security risks #api access keys

Autumn  Blick

Autumn Blick

1601381326

Public ASX100 APIs: The Essential List

We’ve conducted some initial research into the public APIs of the ASX100 because we regularly have conversations about what others are doing with their APIs and what best practices look like. Being able to point to good local examples and explain what is happening in Australia is a key part of this conversation.

Method

The method used for this initial research was to obtain a list of the ASX100 (as of 18 September 2020). Then work through each company looking at the following:

  1. Whether the company had a public API: this was found by googling “[company name] API” and “[company name] API developer” and “[company name] developer portal”. Sometimes the company’s website was navigated or searched.
  2. Some data points about the API were noted, such as the URL of the portal/documentation and the method they used to publish the API (portal, documentation, web page).
  3. Observations were recorded that piqued the interest of the researchers (you will find these below).
  4. Other notes were made to support future research.
  5. You will find a summary of the data in the infographic below.

Data

With regards to how the APIs are shared:

#api #api-development #api-analytics #apis #api-integration #api-testing #api-security #api-gateway

Linda Osborn

1624007395

Know About Cash App Refund Policy & How To Get Refund

We will talk about how to get a cash app refund but before let’s talk about the app. Cash App is an application that allows users to send and receive money instantly in a matter of seconds using a mobile phone.

Cash App is active widely across the countries, and billions of transactions take place each day.

However, sometimes users make incorrect payment transfers for which they need to take specific steps to get a refund on Cash App. Here’s how one can request for Cash App refund instantly.

Cash App Refund Scenarios
There are two main reasons in which users are eligible for a refund.

Reason1. If a user tries to send money to another account however it get cancel due to a technical error or network issue.

Reason 2. If Cash App servers are not responding then also user can get a refund.
If your problem is different, you may call or fill the form below, we make sure to give the utmost information so that you have a great experience while using the cash app.

How to Cancel & Refund Payment on Cash App?
As easy it is to send money to someone on Cash App, it is just as easy to get a refund. Follow below simple steps to generate a refund on Cash App.

  • Click the Activity Tab in the Cash App on your mobile phone.
  • Click the payment to be refunded.
  • Click on three dots.
  • Click “Refund”.
  • Click “OK”.

If you are not able to see the refund option (if the transaction was done more than 6 hours ago) on the transaction then you can contact the support for further assistance or fill the form down below.

Where Refund Reflects?
After successfully applying for a refund this is the most common question that users ask as it is the foremost one’s right to know the complete transaction history.

Once a refund is process, it reflects in the same account. However, if the original payment transaction got processed using Visa or Master card, then it gets reflect in the same account.

No matter anywhere the transaction got processed from if the refund has got processed it will reflect in the original account from where the payment got deducted. Users will get notified through a confirmation email, and the same will be visible in the transaction history of the Cash App.

Cash App Refund Policy
Since we all know that Cash App is an online payment exchange service, many of us are sending and receiving a lot of money using the App. If you need to generate a refund for an incorrect payment you made through Cash App, then you have to understand how the process works.

Cash App Refund policies are stringent, and there are specific rules that the company follows. You can always get in touch with Cash App support team executives if you don’t know how to go about your payments.

Cash App Merchant Refund
Cash App Merchant Refund is the only refund policy that the company has where applies to the situation in which you have made a faulty payment. There is a significant difference between requesting a refund from a recipient of your transaction or company. Please note that Cash App is not accountable for any of your transactions, this means that if you have made an improper payment, you are the only party responsible for the same.

The company does not guarantee the return of your money as it is entirely up to the Merchant to process the refund.

In How Much Time Will Refund Reflect?
Generally, suppose the recipient has agreed to refund the amount back then. In this case, it reflects within seconds. However, mainly in the case if Merchant refunds the transaction, it can take up to 10 business days for Cash App to receive the refund. The moment Cash App received any refund; it will automatically appear in your Cash App balance.

If Merchant has generated the refund and it’s been less than ten business days then kindly get in touch with Merchant.

If Merchant has generated the refund and it’s been more than ten business days then kindly get in touch with Cash App Customer Service executives as they will help you to dispute the transaction.

Conclusion
Cash App refund steps are specifically designed to assure the refund process works smoothly.

These steps are 100% result oriented as they work with a definite cause.

However, one needs to patiently read all the steps one by one to get the advantage if anyone is still facing any concern please connect with the mentioned contact numbers or fill the form below, we make sure to publish the required information.

### FAQS

Q. How do I get a refund on cash app?
Follow the below-mentioned steps to get a refund on the cash app:

  1. Click the Activity Tab in the Cash App on your mobile phone.
  2. Click the payment to be refunded.
  3. Click on three dots.
  4. Click “Refund”.
  5. Click “Ok”.

Q. How long does it take for Cash App to refund the money?
When a merchant processes a refund, it takes ten business working days for the cash app to receive a refund. The moment Cash App receives the refund, it will automatically appear in Cash App balance.

Q. Can you dispute a cash app transaction?
To dispute the cash card transaction, you need to wait until it gets completed. If you are unable to resolve the issue with the Merchant, then in the case Cash App support executives will help you to resolve the issue.

Q. What happens when you dispute a Cash App?
Once the cardholder receives the dispute, then Merchant has seven days to claim the dispute. If the Merchant does not respond to dispute payment within seven days, then the funds will be transferred back to the card holder’s account.

Q. Can Cash App be refunded?
In general, Cash App to Cash App payments is made instantly. Users are responsible for any payments made incorrectly. To get 100% sure check your activity list to see if the payment receipts are displaying a cancel option.

Bottom Line:-

Cash App Refund | Cash app refund policy | Cash app refund process | Cash app refund online | Cash app refund merchant | Cash app refund request | How to activate Cash App cardActivate Cash App CardCash App Card Activationactivate cash cardhow to activate cash card for cash apphow do I activate my cash app card | activate replacement cash app card cash app activation numbernumber to activate cash app card

#cash app refund #cash app refund policy #cash app refund process #cash app refund online #cash app refund merchant #cash app refund request

An API-First Approach For Designing Restful APIs | Hacker Noon

I’ve been working with Restful APIs for some time now and one thing that I love to do is to talk about APIs.

So, today I will show you how to build an API using the API-First approach and Design First with OpenAPI Specification.

First thing first, if you don’t know what’s an API-First approach means, it would be nice you stop reading this and check the blog post that I wrote to the Farfetchs blog where I explain everything that you need to know to start an API using API-First.

Preparing the ground

Before you get your hands dirty, let’s prepare the ground and understand the use case that will be developed.

Tools

If you desire to reproduce the examples that will be shown here, you will need some of those items below.

  • NodeJS
  • OpenAPI Specification
  • Text Editor (I’ll use VSCode)
  • Command Line

Use Case

To keep easy to understand, let’s use the Todo List App, it is a very common concept beyond the software development community.

#api #rest-api #openai #api-first-development #api-design #apis #restful-apis #restful-api

Marcelle  Smith

Marcelle Smith

1598083582

What Are Good Traits That Make Great API Product Managers

As more companies realize the benefits of an API-first mindset and treating their APIs as products, there is a growing need for good API product management practices to make a company’s API strategy a reality. However, API product management is a relatively new field with little established knowledge on what is API product management and what a PM should be doing to ensure their API platform is successful.

Many of the current practices of API product management have carried over from other products and platforms like web and mobile, but API products have their own unique set of challenges due to the way they are marketed and used by customers. While it would be rare for a consumer mobile app to have detailed developer docs and a developer relations team, you’ll find these items common among API product-focused companies. A second unique challenge is that APIs are very developer-centric and many times API PMs are engineers themselves. Yet, this can cause an API or developer program to lose empathy for what their customers actually want if good processes are not in place. Just because you’re an engineer, don’t assume your customers will want the same features and use cases that you want.

This guide lays out what is API product management and some of the things you should be doing to be a good product manager.

#api #analytics #apis #product management #api best practices #api platform #api adoption #product managers #api product #api metrics