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BackWhat is OWASP API Security Top 10?
The OWASP API Security Top 10 is a list of the most critical security risks that affect application programming interfaces. It helps developers, security teams, and organizations understand where APIs commonly fail and what they must fix to reduce exposure.
APIs connect applications, users, devices, partners, and backend systems. They move sensitive data, trigger business workflows, and expose application logic. When teams design or secure APIs poorly, attackers can exploit weak authorization, broken authentication, excessive data access, misconfigurations, and unsafe third-party integrations.
OWASP API Security Top 10 risks
The 2023 OWASP API Security Top 10 highlights risks that directly affect API design, implementation, and operation.
| Rank | Risk | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| API1 | Broken Object Level Authorization | Users can access objects or records they should not access |
| API2 | Broken Authentication | Attackers bypass or abuse weak authentication mechanisms |
| API3 | Broken Object Property Level Authorization | APIs expose or allow changes to restricted object properties |
| API4 | Unrestricted Resource Consumption | Attackers abuse API resources such as CPU, memory, bandwidth, or rate limits |
| API5 | Broken Function Level Authorization | Users access functions reserved for higher privileges |
| API6 | Unrestricted Access to Sensitive Business Flows | Attackers abuse business processes such as booking, buying, or registration |
| API7 | Server Side Request Forgery | Attackers make the server send unauthorized requests |
| API8 | Security Misconfiguration | Weak defaults, missing headers, poor CORS, or exposed debug settings create risk |
| API9 | Improper Inventory Management | Teams lose track of API versions, hosts, documentation, or ownership |
| API10 | Unsafe Consumption of APIs | Applications trust third-party APIs without proper validation or controls |
Why OWASP API Security matters
APIs often expose direct access to business data and application functions. Attackers do not always need malware to exploit them. They can abuse normal API requests, manipulate object IDs, automate workflows, or exploit weak access checks.
OWASP API Security helps organizations:
- Prioritize API risks during design and development.
- Build stronger authorization and authentication controls.
- Improve API documentation, ownership, and version tracking.
- Add rate limits and resource protection.
- Test APIs for business logic abuse.
- Reduce exposure from third-party API integrations.
How Hexnode helps with OWASP API Security
Hexnode XDR helps organizations strengthen the endpoint security layer around API development, administration, and operations. It monitors Windows endpoints, collects telemetry, evaluates activity, and provides on-device protection against threats. This helps security teams detect suspicious activity on developer machines, administrator workstations, and other managed endpoints that access API environments.
Hexnode XDR provides a centralized dashboard for active detections, endpoint telemetry, incidents, remediation status, and security activity. It also supports integrations such as Hexnode UEM, agent deployment, endpoint monitoring, remote terminal access where applicable, and endpoint isolation. Hexnode XDR does not replace API gateways, API testing tools, WAFs, secure code review, or API posture management.
FAQs
Teams should test APIs during development, before release, after major changes, and continuously in production where monitoring tools support it.
Yes. Mobile apps often rely on backend APIs, so teams should test those APIs for authorization, authentication, data exposure, and abuse risks.