{"id":7497,"date":"2024-07-11T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-11T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.securitytoday.de\/2026\/04\/02\/post_id-5008\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T15:27:03","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T15:27:03","slug":"api-security-the-vulnerable-side-of-digital-transformation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.securitytoday.de\/en\/2024\/07\/11\/api-security-the-vulnerable-side-of-digital-transformation\/","title":{"rendered":"API Security: The Vulnerable Side of Digital Transformation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Every app, every integration runs through APIs. They are the nervous system of IT  &#8211;  and the most poorly protected attack surface. In 2024, APIs were the number one attack vector for data breaches. Why IT decision-makers must prioritize API security.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>TL;DR<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>API attacks: increased by 681 percent in 2023\/2024<\/li>\n<li>Organizations operate 15,000+ APIs  &#8211;  many undocumented<\/li>\n<li>Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) do not effectively protect APIs<\/li>\n<li>Broken Object Level Authorization (BOLA) is the most common vulnerability<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Why APIs Are the Entry Point<\/h2>\n<p>An API directly exposes business logic. An authorization error means access to the entire database.<\/p>\n<h2>OWASP API Top 10<\/h2>\n<p><strong>BOLA:<\/strong> User A retrieves data from User B  &#8211;  changing the ID is sufficient.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Broken Authentication:<\/strong> API keys in JavaScript, no token expiration.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Data Exposure:<\/strong> Complete database objects instead of required fields.<\/p>\n<h2>Immediate Actions<\/h2>\n<p>Create an API inventory. Implement authentication and authorization on every endpoint. Use rate limiting and anomaly detection.<\/p>\n<h2>Conclusion<\/h2>\n<p>APIs need their own security  &#8211;  on par with network and endpoint security.<\/p>\n<h2>Key Facts<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Growth:<\/strong> 681 percent increase  &#8211;  fastest growing vector (Salt Security).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Impact:<\/strong> Top 3 API breaches in 2024: over 50 million data records affected.<\/p>\n<h2>Frequently Asked Questions<\/h2>\n<p class=\"st-faq-hint\">Every question is locked. A tap unlocks the answer.<\/p>\n<details>\n<summary><strong>Is a WAF sufficient?<\/strong><\/summary>\n<p style=\"margin:8px 0 4px 24px;color:#555;line-height:1.6;\">No  &#8211;  WAFs do not detect BOLA or business logic vulnerabilities.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary><strong>How to find undocumented APIs?<\/strong><\/summary>\n<p style=\"margin:8px 0 4px 24px;color:#555;line-height:1.6;\">Use API discovery tools or review code pipelines.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary><strong>What is the first step?<\/strong><\/summary>\n<p style=\"margin:8px 0 4px 24px;color:#555;line-height:1.6;\">Create a complete API inventory. Without visibility, there is no protection.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n<h2>Related Articles<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.securitytoday.de\/en\/2026\/03\/05\/post_id-3819\/\">DsiN Annual Congress 2026: Digital Security in the Connected Society<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.securitytoday.de\/en\/2026\/02\/28\/post_id-3833\/\">Cyber Warfare 2026: When States Upgrade Digitally<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.securitytoday.de\/en\/2026\/02\/24\/post_id-3529\/\">Multi-Cloud Security 2026: The 5 Biggest Risks and How to Mitigate Them<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"font-weight:700;color:#e6e3da;font-size:1.05em;margin:48px 0 16px;\">More from the MBF Media Network<\/p>\n<div style=\"display:flex;flex-direction:column;gap:14px;margin-bottom:40px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cloudmagazin.com\/en\/2026\/02\/28\/cloud-trends-2026-was-it-entscheider-jetzt-auf-dem-radar-haben-muessen\/\" class=\"st-net-card\" style=\"display:block;padding:16px 18px;background:#23261f;border:1px solid rgba(105,216,237,0.22);border-radius:10px;box-shadow:inset 0 1px 0 rgba(230,227,218,0.06),0 2px 10px rgba(0,0,0,0.22);text-decoration:none;color:#e6e3da;\"><span style=\"display:block;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:0.72em;font-weight:700;letter-spacing:0.06em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#0bb7fd;\">cloudmagazin<\/span><span style=\"display:block;color:#e6e3da;line-height:1.45;\">Cloud Trends on cloudmagazin.com<\/span><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.digital-chiefs.de\/eu-ai-act-2026-was-unternehmen-jetzt-umsetzen-muessen\/\" class=\"st-net-card\" style=\"display:block;padding:16px 18px;background:#23261f;border:1px solid rgba(105,216,237,0.22);border-radius:10px;box-shadow:inset 0 1px 0 rgba(230,227,218,0.06),0 2px 10px rgba(0,0,0,0.22);text-decoration:none;color:#e6e3da;\"><span style=\"display:block;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:0.72em;font-weight:700;letter-spacing:0.06em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#d65663;\">Digital Chiefs<\/span><span style=\"display:block;color:#e6e3da;line-height:1.45;\">IT Strategies on digital-chiefs.de<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every app, every integration runs through APIs. They are the nervous system of IT &#8211; and the most poorly protected attack surface. In 2024, APIs were the number one attack vector for data breaches. Why IT decision-makers must prioritize API security. TL;DR API attacks: increased by 681 percent in 2023\/2024 Organizations operate 15,000+ APIs &#8211; [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":5010,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_yoast_wpseo_focuskw":"api security","_yoast_wpseo_title":"API Security: The Vulnerable Side of Digital Transformation","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"API security prevents data breaches by protecting your digital backbone. Discover how to safeguard integrations and stop attacks\u2014secure your APIs now.","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-adv":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-title":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-description":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-image":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-image-id":0,"_yoast_wpseo_twitter-title":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-description":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-image":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-image-id":0,"_evm_slot_owner":"","evm_cvss":0,"evm_risk":0,"evm_casefile":"","evm_primary_cve":"","evm_pin_until":0,"evm_external_preview_token":"","evm_external_preview_expires":"","_evm_translation_lang":"","featured_post":0,"featured_post_sortierung":0,"_wp_old_slug":["post_id-5008"],"footnotes":""},"categories":[255],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-praxis-umsetzung-en"],"evm_reading_time_minutes":2,"wpml_language":"en","wpml_translation_of":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.securitytoday.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.securitytoday.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.securitytoday.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.securitytoday.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.securitytoday.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7497"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.securitytoday.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19808,"href":"https:\/\/www.securitytoday.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7497\/revisions\/19808"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.securitytoday.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.securitytoday.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.securitytoday.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.securitytoday.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}