Understanding APIs
With our understanding of the role APIs play and the security challenges associated with them, let’s take a deeper look at how APIs work in much more detail. By the conclusion of this chapter, you will have a full understanding of how APIs work, starting with the transport protocol and the choice of APIs available to developers. The two central tenets of API security are authentication and authorization—we will cover these in detail to understand their pivotal role. Finally, you’ll understand how keys and tokens are used in ensuring the security and integrity of APIs and the identity of API clients.
In this chapter, we’re going to cover the following main topics:
- The fundamentals of HTTP
- The different types of APIs that are currently in use
- Authentication best practices and methods
- Authorization best practices and methods
- Using tokens and keys
