9 ways to secure and enhance your applications

Discover nine ways to secure and enhance your applications along with API best practices that help drive consumption in this checklist.
 

1. Be creative and inventive without putting data at risk

API access control and policy rules let you be transparent without compromising corporate security and regulatory compliance.

2. Give developers access to common services for seamless integration

Implement a consistent API-centric integration layer for data exchange across on-premises, hybrid, and cloud to ensure that existing identity services are extended to new cloud applications.

3. Know how data and services are accessed from everywhere

Use your API platform as a central point for governing data flow to and from the cloud and mobile apps, between business applications, with partners, and across customer-facing services.

4. Prepare for the dreaded IT or security audit

Use application and API management platforms to maintain irrefutable and actionable information about how your IT services interact with on-premises, cloud, and mobile apps and services.

5. Protect all APIs — even internal APIs — against hijack and attack

Add security measures to safeguard the API service control layer and block common web API attacks.

6. Guarantee service levels for both internal and external customers

Allow business and technical users to measure, monitor, and act on changes in performance or demand.

7. Think of security as a window, not a wall 

With the proper security in place, you can open data to mobile access, cloud integration, and partner collaboration. Use identity management infrastructure along with API-specific identity patterns (OAuth, for instance) to provide safe access to APIs.

8. Separate service exposure from policy enforcement

Give API developers a suite of standard and reusable policy rules that can be easily applied to microservices that represent the specific needs of a given application.

9. Protect back-end services from unusual traffic patterns

Set limits and expectations for API services and their consumers to manage scale and traffic expectations and protect back-end services from malicious activity.

Learn about API Management Pricing.

 

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