API Security
API Security with AAM
The API is the business. Payment flows, customer data, AI agents, partner integrations — all of it runs over APIs. Traditional WAFs were built for web applications, not APIs, and the attack surface is fundamentally different: threats are behavioral, endpoints multiply faster than anyone tracks, and a single misconfigured route can expose an entire database. AAM and Akamai address this from two complementary directions — enforcement at the gateway, and continuous visibility across the full API estate.
of organizations suffered an API security incident last year
Akamai API Security Impact Study, 2026
of enterprise APIs are shadow, zombie, or rogue — unknown to security teams
Akamai operational finding
average annual cost of API-related breaches per organization
Akamai API Security Impact Study, 2026
of enterprises use a WAF — but only 35% use dedicated API security tools
Akamai API Security Impact Study, 2026
Why a WAF isn't enough
80% of enterprises rely on a WAF for API security. Only 35% use dedicated API security tooling. The gap matters because API attacks don't look like web attacks.
What a WAF catches
- SQL injection and XSS
- Known CVE exploit signatures
- Volumetric DDoS at the network layer
- OWASP Top 10 web vulnerabilities
What a WAF misses
- BOLA — requests using legitimate credentials to access wrong objects
- Business logic abuse — valid requests causing unintended behavior
- Shadow and zombie APIs with no controls at all
- Data scraping that looks like normal usage at low volume
Akamai's finding: Modern API attacks are "low and slow." They use legitimate credentials and legal protocol structures to perform illegal acts. Signature-based tools cannot detect them.
The threat landscape
The OWASP API Security Top 10 defines the categories that cause the most real-world API breaches. Understanding each threat is the first step to building effective defenses.
Broken Object Level Authorization (BOLA)
The #1 API threat — attackers manipulate object identifiers to access other users' data. Every request looks legitimate, so no WAF signature catches it.
Shadow, zombie, and rogue APIs
APIs deployed outside formal review (shadow), left running after retirement (zombie), or opened by third parties (rogue) — all unmonitored and unauthenticated.
Business logic abuse
Exploiting legitimate app design flaws — price manipulation, account enumeration, replay — with traffic that looks completely normal.
Unrestricted resource consumption
Aggressive querying that scrapes data or exhausts compute. Without rate limits, one consumer can take down a backend.
Broken authentication
Weak keys, tokens that never rotate, or credentials committed to source — once compromised, full access until manual revocation.
Security misconfiguration
Excessive data exposure, permissive CORS, open debug endpoints — introduced during rapid development, invisible without continuous audit.
Two layers of defense
Effective API security requires both enforcement — blocking attacks in real time — and visibility — knowing what's happening across your entire API estate. AAM and Akamai each handle one side.
AAM — Enforcement at the gateway
API key authentication
Fully managed keys validated at the gateway — invalid keys rejected instantly, with leaked-key detection and fast global revocation.
JWT / OpenID Connect
Native support for Auth0, Okta, Azure AD, and any OpenID-compliant provider — tokens validated at the gateway before backends ever see the request.
Rate limiting and quotas
Limits per IP, user, API key, or plan — stacked burst and daily windows stop resource exhaustion before it reaches your backend.
Request validation
Every request validated against your OpenAPI spec at the gateway — malformed payloads rejected before they reach your backend.
RBAC and authorization policies
Role-based access, JWT scopes, and consumer metadata combine for fine-grained authorization at runtime.
Audit logs and observability
Every auth outcome and policy decision logged and streamed to TrafficPeak for real-time dashboards.
Akamai API Security — Visibility across the estate
Continuous API discovery
Discovers and inventories every API enterprise-wide — shadow, zombie, rogue, and AI-linked. About 40% of a typical estate is unknown before the first scan.
OWASP API Top 10 coverage
Purpose-built testing against all 10 OWASP API Security Risks, with 200+ automated tests runnable in CI/CD pipelines.
Behavioral analytics
Machine learning baselines normal API usage and detects anomalies that WAF signatures cannot — BOLA, abuse, and account takeover via legitimate credentials.
Sensitive data classification
Identifies which APIs return PII, financial data, or IP — surfacing data exposure risk without a manual audit.
East-west traffic monitoring
Monitors internal service-to-service traffic, not just north-south calls — critical for zero-trust and compliance.
Response and workflow automation
Integrates with SIEMs, WAFs, and ITSM tools so detected threats trigger tickets, alerts, and blocklist updates automatically.
How AAM and Akamai work together
Akamai sees the full API estate. AAM enforces security at the gateway. Together they close the loop between detection and enforcement.
Akamai discovers shadow and zombie APIs
Continuous scanning across your Akamai CDN traffic, cloud platforms, and API gateways surfaces APIs that are live but unmanaged — no auth, no rate limits, no observability.
Unmanaged APIs are migrated behind AAM
Once discovered, the path to securing shadow APIs is to bring them behind the AAM gateway. Authentication, rate limiting, validation, and audit logs apply immediately.
Akamai monitors behavioral baselines across the estate
Machine learning establishes what normal looks like for each consumer and each business process — including APIs behind AAM. BOLA, business logic abuse, and data scraping are detectable against this baseline.
Detected threats inform AAM enforcement
When Akamai identifies a malicious consumer, your security team can revoke the API key via AAM's management portal or API. Revocation takes effect quickly — reducing the window between detection and the attacker being locked out.
AAM's audit trail feeds Akamai's compliance reporting
Per-request logs — authentication outcomes, rate limit decisions, policy rejections — stream to Akamai TrafficPeak (Hydrolix) and can be forwarded to Akamai API Security's SIEM integrations for unified reporting.
OWASP API Security Top 10 coverage
How AAM and Akamai together address each risk in the OWASP API Security Top 10 (2023 edition).
Ready to close the API security gap?
Talk to the AAM team about deploying gateway-level enforcement alongside Akamai API Security.