Secure APIs

Practical, battle-tested techniques to recognize and prevent attacks on your APIs.

Hackers know how important your APIs are, and they also know how to find the weak spots in your API security. As a result, APIs have become principal vectors of attack against apps and sites. Here’s the good news! There are effective, tested strategies for finding vulnerabilities, plugging security gaps, and building APIs that are secure by design, as well as a powerful new ally--generative AI.

Secure APIs: Design, build, and implement shows you reliable methods you can use to counter cracks, hacks, and attacks on your internal and external APIs. In this innovative new book, you’ll learn:

 • Addressing the OWASP Top 10 API security vulnerabilities
 • API security by design
 • Zero-trust security
 • Automated API testing strategies
 • Observability and monitoring for threat detection

Written for developers and architects, Secure APIs: Design, build, and implement shows you how to create and deploy APIs that are resistant to the most common security threats. Author Jose Peralta illustrates each vulnerability with extended code samples and shows you exactly how to mitigate them in your own APIs. You’ll find insights into emerging AI-powered security threats, along with tips and patterns for using LLMs in your own security testing.

About the book

Secure APIs: Design, build, and implement shows you modern approaches to uncovering and stopping threats to your APIs, including the OWASP Top 10 API security vulnerabilities, architectural weaknesses, and common mistakes for authentication and authorization. Throughout the book, you’ll find techniques for testing system security, identifying data leak vectors, and discovering insufficient constraints.

You’ll explore dozens of practical examples based on real-world APIs that range from e-commerce to ride-sharing. Learn how to ensure that your organization is aligned with the need for API security, and shift left to bake the essential principles of secure API design in at the earliest stages of development. Plus, patterns and advice for observability ensure you can spot intrusions early and know what to do in the event of an attack.

About the reader

For software developers and architects, cybersecurity professionals and QA engineers. Examples are in Python.

About the author

José Haro Peralta is a consultant, instructor, and author of Microservice APIs. He’s also the founder of microapis.io and apithreats.com.

Get a free eBook (PDF or ePub) from Manning as well as access to the online liveBook format (and its AI assistant that will answer your questions in any language) when you purchase the print book.