The digital economy runs on APIs, the building blocks of the modern internet. From effortless mobile payments to convenient food deliveries, APIs work silently behind the scenes to power the applications we use every day. While APIs aren't new, their usage has exploded in recent years. Cloud computing, agile development practices, and the pandemic-driven surge in digital services have fueled this rapid growth.

Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), with their ability to enable different software systems to communicate, have helped shape the digital world irrevocably. They allow developers to create more interoperable, scalable, efficient, and innovative digital services and applications across important industries such as retail, finance, manufacturing, and healthcare. However, with the explosion of API creation and usage comes inevitable risks.

In today's digital age, applications are no longer monolithic structures but intricate mosaics of interconnected APIs. These APIs are the foundation of modern software and allow for smooth communication and data exchange, providing the dynamic functionality users expect. However, as connectivity increases, so does the risk of exposure to cyberattacks. The security of APIs has become extremely important as cyber threats target these crucial points.

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is the gold standard for protecting cardholder data. With the recent release of version 4.0, the focus on securing APIs has intensified. But what does this mean for your organization, and why shouldn't you take API security with a grain of salt (pun intended)?

The latest Salt Security State of API Security Report is out now, and we’re thrilled to give a little sneak peek of its contents. As we have done in previous years, the State of API Security Report is assembled from survey responses and empirical data from Salt customers. This report includes the special addition of the “in the wild” API vulnerability research, much like last year’s report did, to give deeper insight into API concerns in real-world situations.

In today's digital landscape, organizations face constantly evolving threats, and modern applications are built on APIs, making robust API security a top priority. Salt Security, a trailblazer in AI-powered API security, is at the forefront of addressing this challenge with our innovative platform. The recent introduction of advanced LLM-driven attacker insights further solidifies Salt's position as a leader in API security solutions.

APIs are crucial for modern digital businesses because they allow different software systems to communicate and exchange data seamlessly and they are foundational to how modern applications are built. However, they are also vulnerable to cyberattacks because they are widely used. To address this growing threat, organizations are increasingly turning to API protection solutions to protect their valuable data and ensure uninterrupted business operations.

As you may have seen in the news, a hacker stole 49 million customer records from Dell. The attack wasn’t novel or sophisticated. Instead, the attacker used a business logic flaw and an API to scrape 49 million records from Dell. How did they do it? Here is the attack flow. The attacker registered for an account within the Dell ecosystem to be a reseller/partner. They weren’t going to be. But Dell didn’t perform any checks, and within 48 hours, the attacker had a valid account.

GenAI has the promise to transform companies, and introduce a lot of security risk. One of the main benefits of GenAI relates to the modernization of apps. Most companies are going through some type of app modernization. They are responding to the market by delivering better and better experiences to their customers. This is largely done through the experience people have with their apps. This ranges from banking to healthcare to travel and everywhere in between.

OAuth is an important part of modern authorization frameworks, granting access to resources across different applications easily. However, vulnerabilities in OAuth implementations can create significant security risks. Following research released by Salt labs that uncovered critical vulnerabilities in the world's most popular authorization mechanism, Salt has released a multi-layered protection package to detect attempts to exploit OAuth and proactively fix the vulnerabilities.