Anyone who’s ever misplaced their wallet knows that horrible moment where their stomach drops, the beads of perspiration begin to form on their forehead, and they start mulling over worst-case scenarios. In that worst case scenario, someone used the cash and cards in the wallet to go on a personal spending spree. In a company’s IT environment, a missing device or shadow IT represents that missing wallet.

As one of the oldest attack methods, malware is both well-known to security professionals and well-loved by malicious actors. According to the Independent IT-Security Institute, the total amount of malware has exponentially increased since 2008.

When I was looking to break into the cybersecurity industry, I found myself overwhelmed with the sheer amount of content to learn and try. So much of the content, you had to purchase certain things, or it was way too complicated for me to understand at the time. Today, I wanted to break down create an easy walk-through on how to set up a functional threat hunting lab.

Threat hunting is proactively identifying and thwarting unusual network activity that could indicate an attempted security breach. It’s a historically manual activity, making it time-intensive and arduous. It’s no wonder, then, why most organizations don’t have the time, budget, or resources to undertake it effectively…if at all.

Sitting at your desk, coding away with another cup of your favorite caffeine-infused beverage, you might be thinking to yourself, “it’s true what they say about no rest for the weary.” If you’re developing an app or architecting a cloud-native system, you can actually get the REST you need with the right Application Programming Interface (API). REST APIs provide a scalable, flexible, easy-to-use interface that makes developing and connecting web apps easier.

Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) act as bridges between applications so they can share data. APIs are fundamental to the complex, interconnected systems, enabling organizations to streamline business processes and reduce redundancies. REST APIs are easy to use and understand because they use the same noun- and verb-based format as HTTP. Simultaneously, attackers know how to manipulate this language, making REST APIs a common attack target.

Anyone tracking the evolution of the IT industry is probably familiar with the concept of Industry 4.0. Essentially, it describes the process by which traditional industrial tasks become both digitized and continually managed in an IT-like fashion via modern technologies like cloud computing, digital twins, Internet of Things (IoT) sensorization, and artificial intelligence/machine learning.

If you want to visualize how data flows across your connected applications, you can think back to that childhood game of Chutes and Ladders (also called Snakes and Ladders). As a kid, the board felt like a confusing grid that had the weirdest, seemingly arbitrary connections between blocks. In your modern digital environment, your Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) fulfill the same role that the ladders and chutes/snakes fulfilled, connecting disparate blocks across a larger whole.

When people talk about complex, interconnected ecosystems, they’re really talking about how applications share data and communicate with each other. Like the air-lock on a spaceship lets people pass between physical environments, Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) enable data to pass between digital environments. However, since APIs act as access points between applications, they create potential security risks.

While security teams may “run on Dunkin’,” companies run on applications. From Salesforce and Hubspot to ServiceNow and Jira, your organization relies on a complex, interconnected application ecosystem. In 2022, organizations used an average of 130 Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications. While these technologies enabled them to reduce costs and achieve revenue targets, they created new security risks.