ThreatX - Blog

Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are growing at an unprecedented rate. According to ProgrammableWeb, there were more than 20,600 APIs as of January 2019. That's nearly a 230% increase in the last decade. And while APIs are better suited for today's high-powered business model, they present a myriad of security challenges that must be addressed. 

Last week we had a great webcast and discussion on the topic of securing APIs and microservice architectures. Based on the feedback during the webcast and the many conversations we have with prospects, this is becoming a very hot topic (and source of frustration) for many of you in application security.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise given that these two topics are shifting some of the fundamental assumptions that old-school WAFs have relied on for years. Instead of everything coming in through the front door, applications are increasingly accessed via APIs that can be both Internet-facing, as well as connected on the back-end. Likewise, as applications become more modular and broken into microservices, the old appliance-based model of WAFs is increasingly out of the loop in terms of seeing and enforcing application traffic.

Many of the questions we received in the webinar mirrored questions and challenges we regularly hear in the field when engaging with AppSec teams. So with that in mind, I wanted to quickly run through, and provide answers to, some of those questions.

APIs have become a strategic necessity for conducting business due to the agility, innovation, and automation they enable. While 90% of the business reaps the benefits of this technology, the security teams are often exposed to a slew of new challenges that can’t be solved by long-standing security tools and strategies. In fact, according to Gartner¹, by 2022, API abuses will be the most frequent attack vector resulting in data breaches for enterprise web applications. We are partnering with the team at SC Magazine to address this phenomenon in an upcoming webinar.

Before joining ThreatX, Jeremiah Cruit was no stranger to Web Application Firewalls. As a seasoned CISO with 20+ years in the industry, he tried dozens of WAF solutions along the way. And with each solution, his faith in the effectiveness and usability of WAFs dwindled. So how did he end up at a WAF company? IDG Connect explored this and more about his past in the following interview. 

Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to discuss the role of machine learning in security with Dave Shackleford from SANS. It was a fun discussion, and if you have the time, I encourage you to check it out here.

It's hard to believe, but the New Year is nearly upon us. 2018 was a busy year for cybersecurity, between regulatory changes and massive data breaches. Security teams were faced with obstacles that had never before been encountered and were forced to adapt. And while the year is coming to a close, the challenges are far from over. With new vulnerabilities arising from IoT-enabled innovations, an increase in sophisticated attacks due to bots leveraging AI, and the potential for a catastrophic breach in an established sector like utilities, 2019 is shaping up to be a challenging year on the cybersecurity front.

We are thrilled to have been selected as a finalist in the SC Media Awards for Best Web Application Solution in the Trust Awards Category. As many of you are aware, the SC Awards are viewed by the security industry as the gold standard of excellence in cybersecurity and we’re in great company with the likes of Imperva, Akamai, WhiteHat Security, and Contrast Security.

In this series of blog posts, we have been analyzing the major forces that are reshaping the way the industry approaches application security.In this post, we lay out the foundations for a new approach to security that not only solves the problems of the old approach to web application firewalls (WAFs), but also addresses the new challenges posed by the changing application and threat landscapes. In case you missed any of the previous sections, you can check them out here: