API attacks are on the rise. One of their main targets is e-commerce businesses like yours.
APIs are an integral part of how e-commerce businesses accelerate their growth in the digital world.
E-commerce platforms use APIs at every customer touchpoint, from browsing products to processing deliveries. As the following diagram shows, API usage is on the rise, making APIs an attractive target for hackers. Abuse of APIs can damage reputations, harm consumers, and impact revenue. Therefore, API security is worth considering for e-commerce stakeholders.
API attacks are on the rise. One of their major targets is eCommerce firms like yours.
APIs are a vital part of how eCommerce businesses are accelerating their growth in the digital world.
ECommerce platforms use APIs at all customer touchpoints, from displaying products to handling shipping. Owing to their increased use, APIs are attractive targets for hackers, as the following numbers expose:
- API attack traffic increased by 681% in 2021
- 77% of retail respondents experienced API security incidents in 2021– according to No name security
If left unaddressed, API abuse can damage your reputation, harm consumers, and affect the bottom line. Therefore, API security deserves the attention of e-commerce stakeholders.
Why does an ecommerce company need an API?
The API makes it easy to process product listings and orders across retailers and e-commerce platforms. He turned a static website into a fully customizable headless store. Retailers use APIs for a variety of functions including login, product catalogs, shipping and subscriptions.
This allows the company to improve the quality of customer service. When shopping, one service handles your order. Another one calculates the tax. Another allows for shipping and more.
But the client has no idea what’s going on behind the scenes. APIs help connect these different elements and communicate seamlessly.
Key benefits of APIs in eCommerce
- Effective at monitoring and analyzing data, a key factor for retailers
- Enables communication with chatbots
- Connects e-commerce platforms to third-party marketplaces
Why Is API Security Crucial for Ecommerce?
The API is easy to use and integrate for business. While most APIs are not intended for public use, they generally have full access to all sensitive content and information.
Customers enter PII when shopping on online sites such as email, password, credit card details and phone number. They also share transaction details like bonuses, balances and rewards. This increases the chances of an attacker stealing data.
They are highly exposed if not designed and tuned for strong and ongoing security. Inadequate security testing and lack of business logic have led to an overall increase in API security risks.
Important factors causing API security issues are
Authentication Flaw
Many APIs do not correctly check if the request is from a legitimate user. Hackers find encryption errors in authentication and privilege elevation. They continue to use the listed technologies to compromise user accounts.
For example, some e-commerce platforms integrate with external logistics systems to transmit shipping details. In this case, if the authentication chain is insufficient, the API can leak PII through replay attacks.
Automated Attacks
Automated attacks against insecure APIs are increasing with the wide adoption of APIs. Instead of exploiting a vulnerability in the API code, hackers exploit a vulnerability in the business logic inside the API.
They can inject malicious scripts into bots to access your product insights at scale.
When bad bots overwhelm your site, your real users can’t shop on your site. For example, they can capture an entire inventory of high-demand products in seconds.
Bulk attacks against e-commerce APIs without rate limits (#4 in OWASP API Security Top 10) can render shopping apps unresponsive, resulting in non-responsiveness user satisfaction.
Shadow and Zombie API
However, many companies are having difficulty separating real transactions from fake transactions. They also caught off guard against unprotected virtual APIs.
Similarly, Zombie API is the most common attack method. The Zombie API can no longer be tracked. They may contain malicious code or expose sensitive data or functionality.
Third-party API
E-commerce businesses that integrate with third parties such as delivery and payment systems. Third-party APIs are difficult to manage. These are commonly targeted by attackers.
For example, the shopping cart API is the primary target because it provides business entry points. A major UK retailer experienced attacks more than 1000 times per day on this API. The attack is multiplied by 10 when special offers are in progress.
Traditional security tools
Most organizations lack adequate defenses to protect against evolving API risks. API threats are sophisticated and persistent, and traditional methods are not effective against them.
WAF or legacy API gateways need more real-time capabilities to distinguish bad activity from good API.
Hackers can manipulate API discounts and promotions during peak hours. These tools struggle to protect against such attacks.
You’ll need comprehensive API protection solutions like App Trana to protect your website and your customers’ sensitive information.
Ecommerce API Security Best Practices
Ecommerce API security threats have the potential to wreak havoc on retailers and customers. For this reason, you need to take appropriate remedial measures.
Exploring API
The first step is to understand what you have in your API context. An inventory of all APIs, including undocumented APIs, is essential if you want to secure what you don’t know.
API discovery involves finding and inventorying APIs. 67% of retailers surveyed said they lack API inventory visibility. A good API security solution that provides powerful API discovery features. It automatically inventory all APIs, including Zombie and Shadow APIs.
Make sure the zombie APIs are disabled. When the client has finally stopped integrating with the deprecated API, make sure the API is disabled. If you’re going to publish API documentation externally, make sure it’s valid, checked, and doesn’t expose security holes.
API Security and Penetration Testing
Integrate API security early in development. Improving security and managing vulnerabilities are key aspects of developing your API. Use an API security scanner (e.g. Infinite API Scanner) for smooth API vulnerability scanning. Make sure to fix identified vulnerabilities immediately.
In addition to automated API analysis tools, manual penetration testing is essential. It helps you detect configuration errors that may go unnoticed.
Proper authentication and authorization
Validating a buyer’s identity and allowing access only to specific resources to which they are authorized is critical in API security.
OAuth 2.0, API key, and token-based authentication are some of the API authentication methods for verifying user identity.
API Rate Limit
According to data, there are already 28 API endpoints in 2020 and 89 points in 2021, the number of API endpoints tripled. A similar increase in API calls makes sense. API calls increased by 141% in the first half of 2021. Attack surfaces also increased accordingly.
Attackers can make e-commerce websites unavailable to legitimate shoppers with DDoS attacks. With API rate limiting, you can limit the number of requests from overloaded system resources. It can limit demand beyond the limit. It allows you to make your website available to buyers without compromising on performance.
API Behavior and Analysis
Leverage API Guard solution to find unusual behavior in API traffic. Distinguishing malicious traffic from normal API traffic can help detect ongoing attacks.
It also highlights bad system behavior and other dangerous interruptions to your service. It analyzes traffic metadata to determine the source of the attack. You can use this information to prevent and fix problems in the API.
Tips to protect your ecommerce site
- Make sure all third-party integrations and plugins are tested regularly
- Help your customers generate strong and unique passwords
- Ensure that only necessary customer data is stored
- Keep your website up to date
- Secure your site with HTTPS
- Back up your data
Ecommerce security: Plan ahead to stay safe
Increased API usage has increased the attack surface, making e-commerce businesses vulnerable to attacks. It calls for immediate requests to mitigate the API security risks mentioned above.
Failure to secure an e-commerce platform can directly affect sales. It destroys your reputation. Take action now to earn your API secure foundation.