Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

APIs are essential in today's digital landscape, supporting everything from mobile apps to vital backend systems. As their importance grows, they also become attractive targets for advanced attackers who bypass traditional security methods. These adversaries do not simply exploit API flaws; instead, they mimic normal user behavior to launch subtle, slow-and-low attacks that are difficult for conventional tools to detect.

Security teams face a daunting mix of relentless alerts, complex investigations, and limited resources. It’s not just about detecting threats; it's also about responding quickly and efficiently. Elastic Security has long provided prebuilt capabilities for detection, investigation, and response. But what really sets Elastic apart is its open, API-first approach that gives you the power to build and automate specific workflows at your security operations center (SOC).

APIs run the show today. Whether it’s a mobile app fetching user data, a SaaS platform integrating with Stripe, or a microservice coordinating with ten others, APIs are the glue and the backbone. This is something that attackers are notoriously aware of. The challenge? Most security tooling still operates on a page-view and form-based model. It can’t view the business logic of API calls, like knowing who is supposed to do what on what object and in what context.

In this article Chief information security officers (CISOs) are continually tasked with understanding and deploying innovative solutions that reduce risk while increasing operational efficiency. As organizations expand their reliance on digital data and cloud-based infrastructures, the volume and complexity of security questionnaires have grown exponentially. In this environment, modernizing and streamlining these questionnaires is not simply about efficiency; it is a strategic imperative.

Your API attack surface is larger and more exposed than you realize. In today's complex, cloud-native environment, APIs are deployed at an astonishing rate. While this rapid pace fuels innovation, it also creates a significant visibility gap. The APIs you are aware of and manage are only the tip of the iceberg. Your actual risk exists beneath the surface, in the undocumented, unmanaged, and forgotten APIs that traditional security tools completely overlook.

Imagine an online retailer running a promotion: “Spend $100 this month, get a $25 gift card.” It sounds simple encourage loyal shoppers to spend more. But due to a flaw in the app’s logic, a clever user discovers a loophole. They place enough orders to reach the $100 threshold and receive the gift card. Then, they cancel a small order to drop below the threshold only to make a new one that pushes their total back over $100.

I’ve spent my career building solutions to protect the API fabric that powers modern businesses. I founded Salt because I saw that traditional security tools such as WAFs, gateways, and CDNs weren’t designed to see or secure APIs. That gap led to breaches, blind spots, and billions in risk. Today, we’re facing a new wave of risk that’s even bigger than the last. The rise of Agentic AI has brought us to a true inflection point. Agentic AI isn’t just another software layer.