Topic starter
01/08/2026 10:49 pm
TL;DR: API attacks are increasingly exploiting shadow APIs, business logic flaws, and stolen credentials, while most organisations still lack centralized discovery and governance, according to Salt and the 2023 State of the CISO report. The control gap is not just detection; it is continuous visibility into every API that can expose data or impersonate legitimate users.
Editorial analysis by NHI Mgmt Group, based on content published by Salt: “Understanding API Attacks: Why Are They Different and How to Prevent API Attacks”.
By the numbers:
- 95% of CISOs worldwide say their organisation has made API security a planned priority over the next two years.
Key questions
Q: What breaks when APIs are not centrally discovered and governed?
A: Undiscovered APIs create blind spots that bypass ownership, review and policy enforcement.
Q: Why do stolen API credentials create such a fast-moving breach path for modern applications?
A: Stolen API credentials create fast-moving breach paths because they often grant immediate, privileged access without a second trust decision.
Q: How should security teams detect API reconnaissance that looks like normal traffic?
A: Security teams should look for correlated patterns across many small API events rather than judging each request alone.
Practitioner guidance
- Inventory every exposed API continuously Build a live register of public, partner and internal APIs, then tie each one to an owner, data classification and retirement date so shadow and zombie endpoints do not remain outside governance.
- Bind API credentials to lifecycle controls Apply issuance, scoping, rotation and revocation rules to API keys and tokens so a stolen credential cannot remain valid after its original purpose has passed.
- Test for business logic abuse paths Review whether legitimate API calls can be chained, replayed or parameter-tampered into unauthorised actions, especially where the request format looks normal but the outcome is not.
Bottom line: API attacks often work because the request is legitimate but the purpose is not, which makes governance and authorisation more important than signature matching alone.
Explore further
View Full Forum → | NHI Foundation Course → | Our Services → | Read the full analysis →
01/08/2026 10:57 pm
API governance has become an identity control problem, not only an application security problem. Once keys, tokens and service credentials are the mechanism of access, the question is who or what is allowed to act through them and for how long. That places API inventory, credential scope and revocation into the same governance conversation as PAM and NHI lifecycle control. Practitioners should treat every externally reachable API as an identity-bound access surface.
A few things that frame the scale:
- Secrets management is a top five cybersecurity priority for only 33% of organisations, behind cloud security (45%), API security (42%), and endpoint security (36%), according to the 2024 State of Secrets Management Survey.
A question worth separating out:
Q: What should organisations do first to reduce API attack exposure?
A: Start with a complete inventory of every exposed API, then assign ownership and remove or retire endpoints that no longer serve a business purpose. Without that baseline, later controls such as authentication hardening, anomaly detection and policy enforcement will always miss part of the environment. Discovery comes before durable governance.
👉 Read our full editorial: API attacks are exploiting governance gaps and stolen credentials