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A web API is an efficient way to communicate with an application or service. However, this convenience opens your systems to new security risks. API Security in Action gives you the skills to build strong, safe APIs you can confidently expose to the world. Inside, you’ll learn to construct secure and scalable REST APIs, deliver machine-to-machine interaction in a microservices architecture, and provide protection in resource-constrained IoT (Internet of Things) environments.An excellent primer for folks looking to pick up the tenets of API security in an example-driven manner.
About the Technology
Web APIs are the foundation of interconnected IT architecture. With applications now dependent on third-party apps and services for essential tasks, the threats are increasingly complex and the need to secure them is more critical than ever. RESTful web services, microservices, the Internet of Things, and cloud-hosted applications all bring unique security challenges that demand new approaches to API security.About the book
API Security in Action shows you how to create secure web APIs that you can confidently share with your business partners and expose for public usage. Security expert Neil Madden takes you under the hood of modern API security concepts, including token-based authentication for flexible multi-user security, bootstrapping a secure environment in a Kubernetes microservices architecture, and using lightweight cryptography to secure an IoT device. Chapter-by-chapter, you’ll build new layers of security onto a basic social network API, mastering techniques to protect against increasingly complex threat models and hostile environments. When you’re done, you’ll have the practical skills to design and implement APIs that are safe from most common attacks and are ready for the threats of tomorrow.
Table of Contents takes you straight to the bookdetailed table of contents
Part 1: Foundations
1 What is API security?
1.1 An analogy: taking your driving test
1.2 What is an API?
1.3 API security in context
1.3.1 A typical API deployment
1.4 Elements of API security
1.4.1 Assets
1.4.2 Security goals
1.4.3 Environments and threat models
1.5 Security mechanisms
1.5.1 Identification and authentication
1.5.2 Access control and authorization
1.5.3 Audit logging
1.5.4 Rate-limiting
1.6 Summary
2 Secure API development
2.1 The Natter API
2.1.1 Overview of the Natter API
2.1.2 Implementation overview
2.1.3 Setting up the project
2.1.4 Initializing the database
2.2 Developing the REST API
2.2.1 Creating a new space
2.3 Wiring up the REST endpoints
2.3.1 Trying it out
2.4 Injection attacks
2.4.1 Preventing injection attacks
2.4.2 Mitigating SQL injection with permissions
2.5 Input validation
2.6 Producing safe output
2.6.1 Exploiting XSS Attacks
2.6.2 Preventing XSS
2.6.3 Implementing the protections
2.7 What hasn’t been covered
2.8 Summary
3 Securing the Natter API
3.1 Addressing threats with security controls
3.2 Rate-limiting for availability
3.2.1 Rate-limiting with Guava
3.3 Authentication to prevent spoofing
3.3.1 HTTP Basic authentication
3.3.2 Secure password storage with Scrypt
3.3.3 Registering users in the Natter API
3.3.4 Authenticating users in Natter
3.4 Using encryption to keep data private
3.4.1 Enabling HTTPS
3.4.2 Strict transport security
3.5 Audit logging for accountability
3.6 Access control
3.6.1 Enforcing authentication
3.6.2 Access control lists
3.6.3 Enforcing access control in Natter
3.6.4 Adding new members to a Natter space
3.6.5 Avoiding privilege escalation attacks
3.7 Summary
Part 2: Securing REST APIs
4 Session cookie authentication
4.1 Authentication in web browsers
4.1.1 Calling the Natter API from JavaScript
4.1.2 Intercepting form submission
4.1.3 Serving the HTML from the same origin
4.1.4 Drawbacks of HTTP authentication
4.2 Token-based authentication
4.2.1 A token store abstraction
4.2.2 Implementing token-based login
4.3 Session cookies
4.3.1 Avoiding session fixation attacks
4.3.2 Cookie security attributes
4.3.3 Validating session cookies
4.4 Preventing cross-site request forgery attacks
4.4.1 SameSite cookies
4.4.2 Hash-based double-submit cookies
4.4.3 Double-submit cookies for the Natter API
4.5 Building the Natter login UI
4.5.1 Calling the login API from JavaScript
4.6 Implementing logout
4.7 Summary
5 Modern token-based authentication
5.1 Allowing cross-domain requests with CORS
5.1.1 Preflight requests
5.1.2 CORS headers
5.1.3 Adding CORS headers to the Natter API
5.2 Tokens without cookies
5.2.1 Storing token state in a database
5.2.2 The Bearer authentication scheme
5.2.3 Deleting expired tokens
5.2.4 Storing tokens in Web Storage
5.2.5 Updating the CORS filter
5.2.6 XSS attacks on Web Storage
5.3 Hardening database token storage
5.3.1 Hashing database tokens
5.3.2 Authenticating tokens with HMAC
5.3.3 Protecting sensitive attributes
5.4 Summary
6 Self-contained tokens and JWTs
6.1 Storing token state on the client
6.1.1 Protecting JSON tokens with HMAC
6.2 JSON Web Tokens
6.2.1 The standard JWT claims
6.2.2 The JOSE header
6.2.3 Generating standard JWTs
6.2.4 Validating a signed JWT
6.3 Encrypted sensitive attributes
6.3.1 Authenticated encryption
6.3.2 Authenticated encryption with NaCl
6.3.3 Encrypted JWTs
6.3.4 Using a JWT library
6.4 Using types for secure API design
6.5 Handling token revocation
6.5.1 Implementing hybrid tokens
6.6 Summary
7 OAuth2 and OpenID Connect
7.1 Scoped tokens
7.1.1 Adding scoped tokens to Natter
7.1.2 The difference between scopes and permissions
7.2 Introducing OAuth2
7.2.1 Types of clients
7.2.2 Authorization grants
7.2.3 Discovering OAuth2 endpoints
7.3 The Authorization Code grant
7.3.1 Redirect URIs for different types of client
7.3.2 Hardening code exchange with PKCE
7.3.3 Refresh tokens
7.4 Validating an access token
7.4.1 Token introspection
7.4.2 Securing the HTTPS client configuration
7.4.3 Token revocation
7.4.4 JWT access tokens
7.4.5 Encrypted JWT access tokens
7.4.6 Letting the AS decrypt the tokens
7.5 Single sign-on
7.6 OpenID Connect
7.6.1 ID tokens
7.6.2 Hardening OIDC
7.6.3 Passing an ID token to an API
7.7 Summary
8 Identity-based access control
8.1 Users and groups
8.1.1 LDAP groups
8.2 Role-based access control
8.2.1 Mapping roles to permissions
8.2.2 Static roles
8.2.3 Determining user roles
8.2.4 Dynamic roles
8.3 Attribute-based access control
8.3.1 Combining decisions
8.3.2 Implementing ABAC decisions
8.3.3 Policy agents and API gateways
8.3.4 Distributed policy enforcement and XACML
8.3.5 Best practices for ABAC
8.4 Summary
Part 3: Securing Microservice APIs in Kubernetes
9 Capability-based security and Macaroons
9.1 Capability-based security
9.2 Capabilities and REST
9.2.1 Capabilities as URIs
9.2.2 Using capability URIs in the Natter API
9.2.3 HATEOAS
9.2.4 Hardening capability URIs
9.2.5 Combining capabilities with identity
9.3 Macaroons: capabilities with caveats
9.3.1 First-party caveats
9.3.2 Third-party caveats
9.4 Summary
10 Microservice APIs in Kubernetes
10.1 Microservice APIs on Kubernetes
10.2 Deploying Natter on Kubernetes
10.2.1 Building H2 database as a Docker container
10.2.2 Deploying the database to Kubernetes
10.2.3 Answers are at the end of the chapter.Building the Natter API as a Docker container
10.2.4 The link-preview microservice
10.2.5 Deploying the new microservice
10.2.6 Calling the link-preview microservice
10.2.7 Preventing SSRF attacks
10.2.8 DNS rebinding attacks
10.3 Securing microservice communications
10.3.1 Securing communications with TLS
10.3.2 Using a service mesh for TLS
10.3.3 Locking down network connections
10.4 Securing incoming requests
10.5 Summary
11 Securing service-to-service APIs
11.1 API keys and JWT bearer authentication
11.2 The OAuth2 client credentials grant
11.2.1 Service accounts
11.3 The JWT bearer grant for OAuth2
11.3.1 Client authentication
11.3.2 Service account authentication
11.4 Mutual TLS authentication
11.4.1 How TLS certificate authentication works
11.4.2 Client certificate authentication
11.4.3 Verifying client identity
11.4.4 Using a service mesh
11.4.5 Mutual TLS with OAuth2
11.4.6 Certificate-bound access tokens
11.5 Managing service credentials
11.5.1 Kubernetes secrets
11.5.2 Key and secret management services
11.5.3 Avoiding long-lived secrets on disk
11.5.4 Key derivation
11.6 Service API calls in response to user requests
11.6.1 The phantom token pattern
11.6.2 OAuth2 token exchange
11.7 Summary
Part 4: Securing Internet of Things APIs
12 Securing IoT communications
12.1 Transport layer security
12.1.1 Datagram TLS
12.1.2 Cipher suites for constrained devices
12.2 Pre-shared keys
12.2.1 Implementing a PSK server
12.2.2 The PSK client
12.2.3 Supporting raw PSK cipher suites
====12.2.4 PSK with forward secrecy === 12.3 End-to-end security ==== 12.3.1 COSE ==== 12.3.2 Alternatives to COSE ==== 12.3.3 Misuse-resistant authenticated encryption === 12.4 Key distribution and management ==== 12.4.1 One-off key provisioning ==== 12.4.2 Key distribution servers ==== 12.4.3 Ratcheting for forward secrecy ==== 12.4.4 Post-compromise security === 12.5 Summary
13 Authenticating Things
14 OAuth 2.0 in constrained environments
Appendixes
Appendix A: A Setting up Java and Maven
A.1 Java and Maven
A.1.1 Mac OS X
A.1.2 Windows
A.1.3 Linux
A.2 Installing Docker
A.3 Installing an Authorization Server
A.3.1 Installing ForgeRock Access Management
A.3.2 Installing an open source AS
A.4 Installing an LDAP directory server
A.4.1 ForgeRock Directory Services
A.4.2 Installing an open source LDAP directory server
Appendix B: B Setting up Kubernetes
B.1 MacOS
B.1.1 VirtualBox
B.1.2 Minikube
B.2 Linux
B.2.1 VirtualBox
B.2.2 Minikube
B.3 Windows
B.3.1 VirtualBox
B.3.2 Minikube
What's inside
- The main API security controls: authentication, authorization, audit logging, rate limiting, and encryption
- Token-based authentication in web browsers and mobile clients
- Cloud Key Management Services in a Kubernetes environment
- Delegated authorization using OAuth 2.0
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