Modern applications send and receive an unfathomable amount of data at any given time. This flow of data is powered through application programming interfaces (APIs).

From a hacker's perspective, APIs are an attack surface often overlooked by security teams.

APIs often play a crucial role in an application's functionality. Moreover, APIs are not inherently vulnerable if properly configured, and the threat of an attack does not outweigh their value.

As of July 2019, more than 22,000 APIs have been published. Because so many applications rely on APIs, securing online connections can be a crucial component of cloud security operations, especially when working with sensitive data.