The Synergy of API Gateway and WAAP: Why 1 + 1 = 3

In today's API-driven world, ensuring the security of applications and data is critical. APIs are the connectivity infrastructure of modern digital ecosystems, enabling communication between different software systems and services. However, as APIs become more integral to business operations, they also present new attack surfaces. To safeguard these critical assets, organizations often deploy API Gateways and Web Application and API Protection (WAAP) solutions. While each of these tools provides acceptable security benefits on its own, their true strength is realized when used jointly. This blog will explore how the value of combining API Gateway and WAAP protection is greater than the sum of its parts, particularly when defending against sophisticated threats like Business Logic Attacks (BLA).

How API Gateway strengthen Security posture?

An API Gateway is a server that acts as an intermediary between clients and backend services. It manages all the API requests, enforces policies, and routes them to the appropriate service. This central control point provides several security benefits:

• Traffic Management: API Gateways can enforce rate limiting and quotas, preventing abuse by limiting the number of requests a client can make in each time frame.
• Authentication and Authorization: API Gateways ensure that only authenticated and authorized clients can access the APIs, acting as a gatekeeper.
• Threat Protection: Basic security features like IP whitelisting, SSL termination, and logging help protect APIs from common attacks, such as denial-of-service (DoS) attacks.

However, while API Gateways provide essential security controls, their primary focus is on managing API traffic and enforcing policies. They are not designed to detect or prevent more sophisticated and targeted attacks, especially those that exploit the application's business logic.

How does WAAP strengthen Security posture?

Web Application and API Protection (WAAP) solutions are a comprehensive set of tools designed to secure web applications and APIs from a wide range of threats. WAAP solutions typically include:

• Web Application Firewall (WAF): Protects against common web attacks like SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), OWASP top 10 and more.
• API Protection: Provides specialized security measures tailored for APIs, such as schema validation, token validation, and protection against API-specific threats like parameter tampering and excessive data exposure.
• Bot Management: Detects and mitigates malicious bot traffic that can perform automated attacks like credential stuffing.
• Advanced Threat Intelligence: Uses real-time data and machine learning to identify and respond to emerging threats. It establishes baseline behavior patterns for users and applications, quickly identifying anomalies that may indicate attacks.
• L7 DDoS Protection: Safeguards against distributed denial-of-service attacks that can overwhelm an application.

WAAP solutions are particularly adept at identifying and mitigating complex attack patterns, such as Business Logic Attacks, which exploit the legitimate functions of an application to carry out malicious activities.

What is a Business Logic Attack (BLA)?

Business Logic Attacks (BLA) are a type of cyberattack that targets the inherent functionality of an application. Unlike typical attacks that exploit vulnerabilities in the code or infrastructure, BLAs take advantage of flaws in the way an application is designed to operate. These attacks manipulate legitimate processes to achieve malicious outcomes, often bypassing traditional security measures.

For example, a BLA might involve manipulating the checkout process of an e-commerce site to apply unauthorized discounts or altering the sequence of operations in a financial application to transfer funds illegitimately. Because BLAs exploit normal user actions and workflows, they are difficult to detect and prevent using conventional security tools.

Why standalone API Gateways cannot Deal with BLA and How can a WAAP Assists:

While API Gateways provide critical security controls, they are primarily focused on traffic management and access control. API Gateways lack the deep inspection capabilities required to detect and respond to the subtle and complex nature of Business Logic Attacks.

API Gateways are excellent at ensuring that only legitimate traffic reaches the backend services, but they do not analyze the behavior of that traffic in depth. This limitation makes them vulnerable to BLAs, where the attack originates from seemingly legitimate actions by an authenticated user.

WAAP solutions, on the other hand, are equipped to handle these complex scenarios. They offer advanced threat detection capabilities that can analyze API requests at a granular level, identifying patterns and behaviors indicative of BLAs. For instance, a WAAP solution can detect when an attacker is attempting to manipulate an API's business logic by analyzing the sequence and frequency of API calls, identifying unusual transaction patterns, and correlating them with known attack vectors.

By combining the API Gateway's ability to manage and secure API traffic with the WAAP's advanced threat detection and mitigation capabilities, organizations can create a robust defense against BLAs. The API Gateway ensures that only authenticated requests reach the application, while the WAAP inspects these requests for any signs of malicious behavior, particularly those exploiting business logic flaws.

Additional Aspects of Security Synergy:

The combination of API Gateway and WAAP solutions offers several additional security benefits that go beyond addressing BLAs:

• More comprehensive Attack Surface Coverage: The API Gateway provides a first line of defense by filtering out unauthorized requests and managing traffic flow. The WAAP then adds an additional layer by inspecting the traffic for sophisticated attacks, ensuring that even complex threats are mitigated.
• Improved Security Posture with Contextual Intelligence: WAAP solutions leverage advanced analytics and threat intelligence to provide insights into the nature of attacks, helping to fine-tune the API Gateway's security policies. This symbiotic relationship enhances the overall security posture by ensuring that defenses are not only reactive but also proactive.
• Streamlined Incident Response: With both an API Gateway and a WAAP solution in place, organizations can quickly identify and respond to security incidents. The API Gateway can immediately block suspicious traffic, while the WAAP solution provides detailed logs and forensic data to support incident response and recovery efforts.

Conclusion:

In an era where APIs are the backbone of digital transformation, securing them is not just a priority, it is a necessity. While API Gateways and WAAP solutions each offer powerful security capabilities on their own, their true strength lies in their synergy. Together, they create a comprehensive defense against a wide range of threats, including the sophisticated and dangerous Business Logic Attacks.

By combining the API Gateway's traffic management and policy enforcement with the WAAP's advanced threat detection and mitigation, organizations can achieve a level of security that far exceeds what either solution could provide on its own. In this way, API Gateway + WAAP truly equals 3, offering a multiplier effect that enhances the security of your digital ecosystem and prepares you for the evolving threats of the modern world.

With its latest enhancement, Radware's WAAP solution introduces advanced AI-driven Business Logic Attack protection. This feature provides real-time detection and automatic mitigation, continuously learning the API's business logic to block sophisticated attacks. By automatically generating security policies and offering precise bad actor identification, Radware's WAAP enhances API security, demonstrating the power of combining API Gateway and WAAP for a truly comprehensive defense.

Your digital assets deserve the best defense - stay informed, stay safe and contact us Radware products offer multiple techniques for anomaly detection and mitigation. Learn more about Radware's Cloud WAAP services and application protection for Kubernetes.

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.