API Security - Misconfiguration Vulnerability
API security is the process of protecting APIs from attacks. As APIs are very commonly used, so it is prone to attackers. API vulnerabilities are a common thing that can break down your whole system if not treated. APIs may have vulnerabilities like broken authentication and authorization, security misconfiguration, lack of rate limiting, etc. Regularly testing APIs will help you to identify vulnerabilities, and address them.
According to the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP), there are ten API vulnerabilities that should be taken care of when you build an API. In this guide, let’s look at the Security Misconfiguration vulnerability.
Security Misconfiguration
Attackers can exploit misconfiguration in API servers. Security breaches are facilitated when API resources, application infrastructure, and transport protocols include misconfigurations. These misconfigurations pose a serious threat that attackers can take advantage of.
Security misconfigurations include unnecessary HTTP methods, data leakage, usage of default configuration with no or weak authentication, misconfigured HTTP headers and no enforcement of HTTPS.
Further, data corruption through unsanitized inputs, open cloud storage and cross-origin source sharing is a reason for this vulnerability to occur. If these issues are not taken care of then the overall API’s security is at stake.
How To Prevent It?
You can prevent security misconfigurations in multiple ways.
- As security breaches may occur when API resources, application infrastructure, etc include misconfigurations. So, to avoid this you should automate locating configuration flaws.
- By disabling unnecessary features this can be avoided too and will in return protect from the misconfiguration vulnerability.
- By establishing repeatable hardening and patching processes and also, by restricting administrative access, will prevent this from taking place.