Nov 11, 2025 – Jeremy Snyder – A common analogy for APIs is that they are LEGO blocks, or more specifically, APIs are the little studs and slots that allow you to attach LEGO pieces to each other and build something bigger than any individual piece. The LEGO pieces in this analogy would be individual services or applications that perform specific tasks of a larger service or application.
Another surprisingly accurate aspect of this analogy is that – similar to a LEGO model, where most of the studs are hidden inside the model – modern approaches to designing web-based applications have many more internal APIs than what they expose to the outside world. The sheer number of APIs presents a challenge when it comes to ensuring that they operate correctly, efficiently, and above all, securely.
The widely-accepted standard for building a web-based API emerged in the early 2000s and is called REST, Representational State Transfer, often seen as “RESTful”. Instead of being a prescriptive standard, it is more of an architectural style that emphasizes now well-proven aspects of good API design such as stateless communication, resource-oriented URLs, and using defined HTTP methods to perform operations on those resources.
REST, however, does not concern itself with security. This makes it crucial for anyone building a REST API to pay attention to securing their API from potential threats. APIs are routinely used to transfer information that should be kept secret or enable operations that have real-world effects. Not paying attention to API security could lead to sensitive data being leaked and business resources being misused or abused, incurring financial, reputational and other harm to customers and the business.
Securing a REST API can be done in many ways, such as authenticating users, authorizing access to functions and resources, encrypting the connection between the API server and end consumer, and monitoring and logging the operation of the API. To apply the correct mix of protections you need an understanding of the potential threats, sometimes called the threat model, to your API.
Recognizing Threats to REST APIs
The Open Worldwide Application Security Project (OWASP) has a separate top 10 list for API related security risks and just announced the most recent update for 2023
The easiest of these to understand is broken authentication sitting at number 2. This encompasses all cases where access is pos
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