APIs are an important component of modern digital ecosystems, allowing easy communication of applications, services, and systems. However, as an organization grows, it becomes difficult to track all internal and external APIs. A lack of proper visibility can lead to inefficiencies such as security risks, redundant development efforts, and operations.

API discovery addresses this issue by carefully finding and classifying APIs within an organization's infrastructure. This process helps to improve security, governance, and efficiency and ensures that the organization manages and keeps APIs accessible.

This blog will discuss API discovery, its importance, and how it works. Learn more about automated vs manual API discovery.

What is API Discovery?

API Discovery identifies and understands APIs that organizations either actively use or keep inactive. This approach guarantees that security engineers, DevOps teams, and system administrators can efficiently manage the API lifetime, which includes creation, versioning, security, and discontinuation.

API Discovery is important in today’s digital landscape, facilitating service integration and data exchange. However, as applications become more complex, with interconnected systems and numerous microservices, it becomes difficult to maintain a comprehensive understanding of all existing APIs.

Importance of API Discovery

API Discovery is essential for organizations because it gives complete insight into the active APIs in their environments. Here are the main reasons why API discovery is important:

Improved Security

APIs are key gateways to transfer data, which can become vulnerable and expose the system to cyberattack. Use API Discovery to find and secure shadow APIs (undocumented, forgotten, or hidden), which can be subject to API injection, poor access control, and lack of authentication. API inventory will help organizations use security regulations, monitor API traffic, and identify suspicious behavior to prevent breaches.

Operational Efficiency

In big organizations, security teams build and use APIs independently by replicating functionality and inefficiencies. API Discovery helps teams reuse APIs by keeping an accurate inventory of current ones and reducing redundancy. Teams can focus on innovation rather than recreating APIs, saving time and money. It also simplifies API usage by notifying services of endpoints and reduces rework.

API Lifecycle Management

As APIs change, organizations discontinue older versions. Managing API versions and removing outdated APIs will become difficult without API Discovery. API Discovery tracks all API versions and helps security engineers replace insecure versions and upgrade systems that use them. This prevents service outages and keeps APIs updated, safe, and optimized.

Improved API Performance and Monitoring

API discovery tools integrate with performance-monitoring platforms to provide services such as rate limits, response times, and API health. This data enables organizations to manage their APIs by scaling and fixing performance issues. Detecting and categorizing APIs allows teams to monitor performance and reduce user experience concerns such as unavailability or delays.

Faster Incident Response

API Discovery offers an inventory of all APIs, which includes configurations and security protocols, allowing increments in incident response during data breach or security weakness attack. Security teams can detect harmful APIs and update security measures through visibility. Lacking visibility into active APIs leads to delay in incident response and increases risk of potential threats.

How Does API Discovery Work?

API discovery is the process to identify and organize all APIs in an organization's infrastructure. Here is an organized approach on how API Discovery works.

Environmental Scanning and Identification

The first step in API discovery is to find all APIs. Network traffic monitoring checks API requests and responses to find active endpoints. Codebase scanning searches repositories like GitHub and Bitbucket to find API calls in the code.

For organizations that use API gateways, API Discovery can get API information straightaway from the gateway, which routes all API traffic. System logs also give additional insights of undocumented or outdated APIs by analyzing server and application logs.

Classification and Documentation

After identifying APIs, they should be classified and documented. It includes mapping endpoint detection of API paths, methods, and base URLs. API versioning helps to track outdated APIs and ensures compatibility across systems. Authentication details, like OAuth, JWT, and API keys, are documented to enforce security policies.

Some discovery procedures analyze the API's request and response structure to provide API documentation. Each API is arranged on the basis of its role and usage, making it easier for organizations to manage APIs by assigning them to the security teams or services.

Real-Time Monitoring and Continuous Discovery

Continuous monitoring ensures that new, updated, or outdated APIs are found in real-time. API traffic analysis helps to track usage patterns and provide notification to teams about unauthorized or undocumented endpoints.

Performance monitoring helps to detect latency issues, failed requests, and service disruptions. Security monitoring helps to identify misconfigurations, unauthorized access, and possible threats like API abuse. Organizations can prevent security gaps and operational risks by keeping inventory updated.

API Lifecycle Management

API discovery plays a crucial role in managing APIs throughout their lifecycle. It enables security teams to track version updates, identify outdated APIs, and detect and prevent potential threats. Organizations should maintain governance policies to ensure that APIs adhere to security standards and regulatory requirements, ensuring that APIs remain safe, functional, and in line with organizational goals.

Automated vs. Manual API Discovery

Automated API discovery uses tools and software to scan, identify, and document APIs across an organization's infrastructure. Manual API discovery needs security engineers to manually review documentation, analyze codebases, check system logs, and communicate with teams to find APIs.

Here are the differences between automated and manual API discovery:

Final Thoughts

API discovery is an essential component of API security and governance because it allows organizations to monitor their API environment. Undocumented, outdated, or insecure APIs can pose security issues and can lead to compliance challenges. Automated API discovery allows for continuous monitoring and provides accurate data on API usage, versioning, and security setups.

Akto automates API discovery by understanding all APIs in an organization's environment, including shadow and abandoned APIs. Akto improves API visibility and security controls by combining real-time monitoring, security integrations, and automated documentation.

Schedule a demo with Akto today to learn how automated API discovery can improve your security posture.