Elevate your API security with Web Application Defense (WAD)

APIs play a significant role in modernisation efforts and have drastically improved how businesses deliver, connect, and scale their applications.

However, securing these critical interfaces leaves a lot to be desired. As usage skyrockets, today’s organisations find themselves lacking the adequate tools, skills, and time needed to safeguard new and legacy APIs from emerging cyber threats.

Growing attack surfaces

APIs are a bedrock component of agile development practices and microservice-based architectures, enabling seamless integration between apps, systems, and services. While their widespread adoption allows organisations to accelerate bringing applications to market, they create a larger attack surface to manage and protect.

Safeguarding APIs at this scale is complex, as one misconfiguration or gap in coverage can inadvertently expose organisations to threats.

⚠️ 92% of businesses have experienced at least one security incident related to insecure APIs in the last 12 months, with 57% experiencing multiple incidents in the same time span, according to Securing the API Attack Surface.

With no centralised security and monitoring in place, organisations continue to struggle with maintaining proper API security postures.

Advanced cyber threats

Research shows that more than 90% of web-based cyberattacks target API endpoints. And for good reason: A central component of today’s web and mobile apps, APIs handle large volumes of data and offer attackers a direct pathway into critical business systems.

This makes them a primary focus for a myriad of exploits and fraudulent activity, including distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, data exfiltration, credential stuffing, and bot-based attacks.

To protect against these threats, organisations need a proactive and layered approach that comprehensively secures APIs from the cyberattacks of today and tomorrow.

As a central component of today’s web and mobile apps, APIs handle large volumes of data and offer attackers a direct pathway into critical business systems.

Unmanaged and unmonitored APIs

As applications sprawl across multiple clouds, data centres, and the edge, it’s easy to lose sight of which APIs are in use, and where. This includes shadow APIs that have been created without proper IT authorisation, oversight, or documentation, as well as orphaned APIs which may have been deprecated or abandoned but still linger within environments.

Unmanaged APIs create massive blind spots for organisations that raise risk profiles and unknowingly introduce areas of exposure. Yet, safeguarding these APIs remains a challenge, as businesses lack the visibility needed to identify and secure rogue and dormant interfaces, wherever they live.

Simplified and proven API security

To keep pace with today’s ever-evolving API landscape, organisations need simplified, comprehensive solutions that protect interfaces across their lifecycle.

Telefónica Tech Web Application Defense (WAD) enables businesses of every size to secure apps and APIs in cloud, on-premises, and edge environments—all from a single managed service.

Part of the Telefónica Tech portfolio of NextDefense solutions, and powered by leading F5 technologies, WAD standardises security and management to safeguard new and legacy APIs from breach, misuse, or malicious exploit.

Now you can enjoy cost-effective and hands-free protection, backed by 24x7 support from Telefónica Tech’s expert-led security team.

Here’s how Telefónica Tech WAD enhances API security for your business:

• Automatically discover APIs: Detect and map APIs for a complete view of undocumented, unmanaged, and exposed interfaces.
• Standardise configurations: Automatically generate and enforce security policies to centralise governance and control of new and legacy APIs.
• Track malicious activity: Monitor security to baselines, identify bad actor activity, and block unwanted connections and attempts in real time.
• Prevent cyber breach: Mitigate advanced attacks in development and production layers, including OWASP API Top 10 threats, zero-day and DDoS attacks, and automated bots.
• Simplify management: Free up in-house resources with zero infrastructure, code changes, or dedicated expertise required.

✅ It’s time to reduce complexity and simplify protection for your apps and APIs. For more information on WAD and Telefónica Tech’s portfolio of NextDefense managed services, contact with us→

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