API security focuses on protecting application interfaces from unauthorized access, data exposure, abuse, and flaws in authentication or design.
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Background for this topic.
Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are sets of rules that allow software applications to communicate and exchange data, often enabling functionality across different systems or services. APIs define how requests and responses are structured, making it possible for programs to interact without direct user involvement. In cybersecurity, APIs are commonly exposed over networks as endpoints that handle sensitive operations like data retrieval, user authentication, or transaction processing.
APIs increase the attack surface by exposing endpoints that attackers can target with unauthorized access attempts, injection attacks, or denial-of-service. Common risks include weak or missing authentication, insufficient input validation, and improper rate limiting. Effective API security requires strong authentication protocols (e.g., OAuth), strict input validation to prevent injection, rate limiting to mitigate abuse, and comprehensive logging to detect anomalies. Protecting APIs is critical to prevent data leaks, privilege escalation, and service disruption in interconnected environments.
The threat actor known as ToddyCat has been attributed to a new malware called Umbrij that's designed to gain surreptitious access to a victim's email correspondence via the Google API
Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a new malware artifact generated using DeepSeek that constructed a novel attack path combining "unrealistic browser-malware concepts with a real browser capability" to turn it into a working ransomware technique that runs entirely inside the browser on both Windows and Android devices
ClickFix, the trick that fools people into running malware by hand, has quietly grown a back office
Researchers tested 444 AI chatbot apps for iPhone and found that 282 of them, nearly two-thirds, exposed paid AI access through their network traffic
A critical vulnerability in Progress Kemp LoadMaster can let an unauthenticated attacker execute arbitrary commands as root on the appliance by sending a crafted request to its API