We’re all too familiar with the unique challenges product development teams face. We are in a time crunch to make the next release and get that next feature in the hands of our customers. In this race to release rapidly and continuously, there is minimal time to test to high quality, and security testing is an afterthought.
As we interviewed Technology Leaders, a common thread in all conversions was regarding the complexity of testing and securing APIs — how complex it is to test APIs to ensure that they are secure and compliant, and the need for security to be part of the development process.
“Testing is hard! Our development and QA team spends over 70% of their time testing APIs. Even after doing that, we are left wondering if we have tested enough”
“Your attackers are attacking you continuously; your customers are finding your defects. We need to integrate security into our SDLC. If a tool can solve it, we are all for it!”
APIs should be secure by design!
Developer-friendly products that perform static code analysis have moved to the early stages of the SDLC. However, no product can provide efficient and sophisticated dynamic analysis to test the complex business logic of the applications that the APIs expose. To test these complex scenarios, humans construct each test, chaining several individual operations into sequences. Thousands of sequences need to be validated, and manually authoring each test is nearly impossible.
Why is testing APIs so important?
1. Defects in APIs are putting all of us at risk!
APIs are everywhere; each provides access to resources and data, and these APIs are exposed on the Internet.
There are numerous API transactions in the middle of all of our interactions on the Internet. Multiple API interactions happen every time we use the baking app, trade stocks, or purchase an airline ticket. We must ensure that the APIs do not have defects and are not vulnerable to attacks that may expose sensitive data owned by each one of us.
2. APIs need to be Secure by Design!
Your API is a window to your application, exposing faults in your business logic; these faults and potential security vulnerabilities are unique to your application. Therefore, perimeter security products (WAFs and gateways), which typically look for commonly known patterns of misuse, cannot protect your API against attacks.
Introducing Aptori
We know how hard it is to deliver secure high-quality software rapidly. We have experienced it as software builders, releasing mission-critical software to millions of users. We have experienced the same challenges while working with CDOs and CISOs as they digitally transform their Enterprises. Motivated to find a better way to build and release secure, high-quality software, we formed Swrlio.
Our first product, Aptori, flips the script on how product teams test and release software. With Aptori, product development teams can autonomously test APIs while in development, reducing threat risk and improving application performance while freeing developers to ship code faster with confidence.
To make this possible, we created the Semantic Reasoning Platform for APIs, which can discern how a human might use the API from the given API specification. It does this by constructing an optimized API call graph and rapidly analyzing the sequences of operations that make meaningful API workflows.
Shift Left your API Security with Aptori, a developer-first security platform for APIs.
What was once manual, laborious, and took months, can now be accomplished autonomously in seconds. Developers can use Aptori to uncover security vulnerabilities arising from defects in the business logic early in the SDLC, boosting the “Sec” in DevSecOps with a seamless experience for developers.
What’s next?
We are grateful to the leading technology companies already using our product and sharing feedback to improve it. If you, too, would like to see what is in the works, please book a demo.
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