The OWASP API Security Top 10 is a comprehensive guide to help organizations understand the risks and threats associated with their APIs and how to secure them. The primary goal of the OWASP API Security Top 10 is to educate those involved in API development and maintenance, for example, developers, designers, architects, managers, or organizations. This awareness document was first published back in 2019. Since then, the API Security industry has flourished and become more mature. APIs play a very important role in modern application architecture. But since innovation has a different pace than creating security awareness, it's important to focus on creating awareness for common API security weaknesses.
What is API Security?
A foundational element of innovation in today’s app-driven world is the API. From banks, retail and transportation to IoT, autonomous vehicles and smart cities, APIs are a critical part of modern mobile, SaaS and web applications and can be found in customer-facing, partner-facing and internal applications. By nature, APIs expose application logic and sensitive data such as Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and because of this have increasingly become a target for attackers. Without secure APIs, rapid innovation would be impossible.
API Security focuses on strategies and solutions to understand and mitigate the unique vulnerabilities and security risks of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).
API Security Top 10 2023
To highlight the distinct nature of API security, OWASP has released a dedicated API Top 10 document alongside their Web Application Security Top 10. The OWASP API Security Project centers on providing strategies and solutions to comprehend and address the specific vulnerabilities and security risks associated with Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).
- API1:2023 - Broken Object Level Authorization: APIs tend to expose endpoints that handle object identifiers, creating a wide attack surface of Object Level Access Control issues. Object level authorization checks should be considered in every function that accesses a data source using an ID from the user.
- API2:2023 - Broken Authentication: Authentication mechanisms are often implemented incorrectly, allowing attackers to compromise authentication tokens or to exploit implementation flaws to assume other user’s identities temporarily or permanently. Compromising a system’s ability to identify the client/user, compromises API security overall.
- API3:2023 - Broken Object Property Level Authorization: This category combines API3:2019 Excessive Data Exposure and API6:2019 - Mass Assignment, focusing on the root cause: the lack of or improper authorization validation at the object property level. This leads to information exposure or manipulation by unauthorized parties.
- API4:2023 - Unrestricted Resource Consumption: Satisfying API requests requires resources such as network bandwidth, CPU, memory, and storage. Other resources such as emails/SMS/phone calls or biometrics validation are made available by service providers via API integrations, and paid for per request. Successful attacks can lead to Denial of Service or an increase of operational costs.
- API5:2023 - Broken Function Level Authorization: Complex access control policies with different hierarchies, groups, and roles, and an unclear separation between administrative and regular functions, tend to lead to authorization flaws. By exploiting these issues, attackers can gain access to other users’ resources and/or administrative functions.
- API6:2023 - Unrestricted Access to Sensitive Business Flows: APIs vulnerable to this risk expose a business flow - such as buying a ticket, or posting a comment - without compensating for how the functionality could harm the business if used excessively in an automated manner. This doesn’t necessarily come from implementation bugs.
- API7:2023 - Server Side Request Forgery: Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) flaws can occur when an API is fetching a remote resource without validating the user-supplied URI. This enables an attacker to coerce the application to send a crafted request to an unexpected destination, even when protected by a firewall or a VPN..
- API8:2023 - Security Misconfiguration: APIs and the systems supporting them typically contain complex configurations, meant to make the APIs more customizable. Software and DevOps engineers can miss these configurations, or don’t follow security best practices when it comes to configuration, opening the door for different types of attacks.
- API9:2023 - Improper Inventory Management: APIs tend to expose more endpoints than traditional web applications, making proper and updated documentation highly important. A proper inventory of hosts and deployed API versions also are important to mitigate issues such as deprecated API versions and exposed debug endpoints.
- API10:2023 - Unsafe Consumption of APIs: Developers tend to trust data received from third-party APIs more than user input, and so tend to adopt weaker security standards. In order to compromise APIs, attackers go after integrated third-party services instead of trying to compromise the target API directly.
Implementing the OWASP API Security Top 10 can offer several benefits for organizations
- Stronger API Security: By following the guidelines outlined in the OWASP API Security Top 10, organizations can enhance the security of their APIs. This helps in preventing common API vulnerabilities and protecting sensitive data and resources.
- Mitigating Risks: The OWASP API Security Top 10 provides a comprehensive list of the most critical security risks specific to APIs. By addressing these risks, organizations can significantly reduce the likelihood of successful attacks and data breaches.
- Compliance with Standards: Many regulatory frameworks, such as the Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), require organizations to secure their APIs and protect user data. Implementing the OWASP API Security Top 10 helps in meeting these compliance requirements.
- Improved Developer Awareness: The OWASP API Security Top 10 raises awareness among developers about common API vulnerabilities and security best practices. This empowers them to write more secure code, perform thorough security testing, and make informed decisions during the API development lifecycle.
- Enhanced Trust and Reputation: By prioritizing API security and demonstrating a commitment to protecting user data, organizations can enhance customer trust and reputation. This can lead to increased customer satisfaction, loyalty, and positive brand perception.
- Early Detection of Security Issues: Following the guidelines in the OWASP API Security Top 10 encourages proactive security measures during the development process. This enables organizations to identify and address security issues at an early stage, reducing the cost and effort associated with fixing vulnerabilities in production.
- Interoperability and Integration: Implementing the OWASP API Security Top 10 ensures that organizations adhere to industry best practices, making their APIs more interoperable and compatible with other systems and applications. This facilitates seamless integration and collaboration with third-party developers and partners.
- Knowledge Sharing and Collaboration: The OWASP API Security Top 10 serves as a common framework for discussing API security and encourages knowledge sharing within the development community. This fosters collaboration, the exchange of best practices, and continuous improvement in API security measures.
By implementing the OWASP API Security Top 10, organizations can establish a robust API security strategy, safeguard sensitive data, prevent attacks, comply with regulations, and build trust among users and stakeholders.
API Security Tools
As the digital landscape evolves, APIs are playing a progressively significant role in powering the Internet. This extends to diverse domains such as mobile applications, single-page applications (SPAs), and cloud infrastructure. While APIs share several security elements and software vulnerabilities with conventional web applications, their unique characteristics warrant a separation between conventional AppSec tools and those crafted specifically for APIs. This page has been curated to feature tools explicitly developed to seamlessly and inherently cater to APIs, acknowledging their distinctive requirements and challenges.
API security tools can be categorized into three overarching groups:
- API Security Posture Tools: These tools compile a comprehensive inventory of APIs, including their exposed methods, and categorize the data associated with each method.
- Objective: Enhance visibility into the security status of an API collection.
- Objective: Enhance visibility into the security status of an API collection.
- API Runtime Security Tools: These tools safeguard APIs during their standard operation by managing and scrutinizing API requests.
- Objective: Identify and thwart malicious requests directed at an API.
- Objective: Identify and thwart malicious requests directed at an API.
- API Security Testing Tools: These tools conduct dynamic evaluations of an API's security posture.
- Objective: Assess the security state of an operational API through dynamic interactions, akin to Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) methodologies.
- Objective: Assess the security state of an operational API through dynamic interactions, akin to Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) methodologies.
The objective is to compile an extensive catalog of API tools by leveraging the diverse viewpoints within the OWASP community.
API Tools List: https://owasp.org/www-community/api_security_tools
References:
https://owasp.org/www-project-api-security/
https://owasp.org/API-Security/editions/2023/en/0x11-t10/