In today’s digital world, API gateways are often the first interaction of incoming requests from the outside world. In most scenarios, enterprises place the gateways in DMZ strategically to secure, protect and throttle their internal digital assets. Hence, security for these gateways becomes crucial and they need to be properly configured and hardened. Whether it is a legacy…
Category: API Security
How-To: Create a Private Key for Signing JWT ID Tokens
Feel free to jot this down: RFC7519. We all have our favourite IETF standards, don’t we? Something we read again and again in front of the roaring fireplace with our slippers on. Something to chuckle at in darker times, to ponder over, and oh yes, to shed a tear for, whilst contemplating the sheer brilliance of it all. …
How to Beat Cross-Site Request Forgery Attacks
Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) is a type of security threat in which malicious actors can steal user data and authentication information by gaining access to HTTP Cookies. Cookies are small nuggets of information which are sent in responses from web servers to the browser. The browser stores this information and will include these cookies in future requests to…
How-to: OpenID Connect Authentication for OAuth
As we know by now, the OAuth 2.0 protocol was built for authorization, not authentication. It excels at delegated authorization. Log in with Google? Sure. The OAuth protected API endpoint never sees your Google username and password. It doesn’t need to know who you are. In fact, like a discreet bouncer at an exclusive club, it prefers not…
Secure your GraphQL Implementation with an API Gateway
Do APIs, not security in your GraphQL I can’t remember the last time I was excited about a new technology like I am with GraphQL. I don’t think there is anything I don’t like about it- at least not yet! I have not been leveraging it every day as my job so keep that in mind, however I…
How-to: OAuth and SAML – A Love Story for Valentine’s Day
Naturally, OAuth 2.0 is the shining star of the OAuth Toolkit (OTK), the prima donna that performs center stage in Layer7’s API security implementation. But waiting in the wings with a bouquet of slightly wilted flowers is an older standard who once shone just as brightly before all those mobile apps came along. His name is SAML. SAML…
How To: Validate Your OAuth Implementation
Is my Layer7 OAuth Toolkit (OTK) installation working? Valid question. Now that you’ve installed OTK on your API Gateway, and have access to OTK-specific policies and assertions in Policy Manager, it’s time to see OAuth in action. The quickest way to do this is through the pre-configured OAuth test clients and OAuth Manager.You can access the OAuth test…
How To: OTK Solution Kit Installation
This is the second post in the blog series focusing on the OAuth Toolkit (OTK) kit. The first video was a more academic overview of the OAuth protocol and workflow. This time we take a look at how to install the OTK solution kit, and how the OTK integrates with the API Gateway to provide easy implementation of OAuth security for API endpoints. The…
How-To: OAuth Overview
Today we’re going to take a look at the Layer 7 API Management OAuth toolkit or OTK. For most customers, the OTK is not an optional Gateway add-on. It is an essential product used in the API management lifecycle for securing client authorization and authentication. The OTK implements security using a combination of the OAuth 2.0 (authorization) and…
CISSP Domain Principles and API Management Solutions
Recently, I took my CISSP exam and passed this industry recognized certification. As part of my preparation, I was trying to apply practical use-cases to those CISSP domain principles. Recognizing how important API security is to our customers, I was trying to associate our Layer7 API Management solutions with CISSP security principles. This not only helped me dwell…