API security

API security is a set of practices and tools designed to protect application programming interfaces (APIs) from various security threats and vulnerabilities. For cloud security engineers, API security is crucial in ensuring the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of data and services exchanged between different cloud-based applications and services.

API security solutions typically offer features such as authentication and authorization mechanisms, rate limiting, input validation, encryption, and threat detection specific to API-based attacks. These tools monitor API traffic to detect and prevent common API-specific threats like injection attacks, parameter tampering, and unauthorized access attempts.

In cloud environments, API security plays a vital role as APIs are often the primary means of interaction between different cloud services and applications. With the increasing adoption of microservices architectures and serverless computing, the number of APIs in use has grown significantly, expanding the potential attack surface. API security solutions help address these challenges by providing visibility into API usage, enforcing security policies consistently across all APIs, and helping organizations maintain compliance with various data protection regulations. By implementing robust API security measures, cloud security engineers can ensure that their organization's APIs are protected against misuse and attacks, maintaining the security and reliability of their cloud-based applications and services.