It is being rightly said that “Data is the new oil”. Without an ongoing flow of clean & accurate data, all big innovations going across the world such as Smart Cars, smart hospitals, and smart cities will remain a dream forever. Moreover, all the talks around AI won’t turn into reality unless Intelligent systems don’t have essential data available.
Enter’s API, an emerging technology for integrating applications using web technology. It plays the role of the data transmitter and connectors between client & server. APIs are responsible for quickly sending & receiving data on our phone and every IoT device. For instance, Facebook messages, Tweets, weather forecasts, Paypal all are APIs based functionalities.
Considering its high profitability, marketing & sales departments can create a personalized consumer experience. Thus, all giant companies are using APIs as a source to generate revenue via API access services.
Due to its high profitability, hackers always have their eyes on APIs to crack it. Therefore, APIs developers must focus on protecting the Customer and corporate data.
We have described a few of Best Practices for API Security that would help you prevent a security breach. Have a look
Multifactor Authentication:
Gone are the days when a simple username and password were enough. You must ensure who you are authorizing to enter into the system. Multi-Factor Authentication delivers a single use-token via push notification or SMS to the user. To successfully enter into the system the user must enter the right username, password, and Digital key authentication.
Multi-Factor Authentication helps in preventing the security breach in APIs and it is one of the best practices to prevent the security breach.
Consider OAuth:
The OAuth authorization framework allows the third-party application to receive limited access to HTTP service. It can be done by managing an approval interaction between the resource owner and the HTTP service.
Consider Adding Timestamp in Request:
It is also an effective way to prevent APIs security breaches. It can be done by adding a request timestamp as an HTTP custom header in API requests. While reviewing the connection request, the server will compare the timestamp to the request timestamp and if it is within a defined time range (1-2 minutes), only then it will approve the request. It will help in preventing recurrent attacks from people who are trying to attack your system without changing the time stamp.
Use Password Hash:
You should always use Hashed password to minimize the damage in case if your system is compromised in some hacker’s attack. There are several effective hashing algorithms that can be used to strengthen password security such as bcrypt and scrypt algorithms.
Input Parameter Validation:
It is always essential to put validation request parameters on the first step before it reaches the application logic. You must put in strong validation requests and rejects if a request fails the validation.
So these are some of the best APIs security practices that would help you in preventing security breaches.
