Understanding APIs and their Security Landscape
Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are pretty much everywhere on the internet although they were created way before the global network existed. Due to their importance in our daily lives and to guarantee sustainable communication between devices and systems, it is recommended that you start reading this book by first understanding what APIs are, as well as what security problems they may have.
In this chapter, you will be introduced to APIs, a bit of their history, and some famous examples of APIs. You will get to know the main API components and how they interact with each other to put the magic to work.
You will also understand the various ways in which APIs can be presented, as well as their types and the protocols involved in API deployments. Depending on the software you are willing to create, you will see that it may be better to design a more specific API type.
The chapter also covers the importance of API security, discussing the premises of its design and deployment phases. By the end of this chapter, you will understand how some common vulnerabilities can arise from poorly secured APIs and the problems they may cause to your environment.
In this chapter, we are going to cover the following main topics:
- What is an API?
- API types and protocols
- Importance of API security
- Common API vulnerabilities
