In 1989, when Jan Carlzon, the now former CEO of Scandinavian Airlines (SAS), published his book Moments of Truth, he posited that a customer’s journey with any organization involves an untold number of seminal moments, each of which possesses the power to make or break that company’s future with that customer. Yet, somehow, long after his book was published, if you ask anyone who regularly travels by air about their experiences,
When an organization uses APIs to build new products, new business channels, and new business models in ways that ultimately produce new revenue or other measurable value, that organization is often said to be “monetizing its APIs.”
APIs are rapidly becoming one of the most important infrastructural layers of the Internet while at the same time becoming a critical component of modern day attacks. They are difficult to secure and determined hackers are extremely tenacious in finding ways to exploit them. Despite what some people — even experts — would lead you to believe, there are no silver bullets. That said, when proactively managed and secured, the efficacy of APIs greatly outweighs the risks associated with deploying them.
If you were existing anywhere but under a rock for the last few weeks, then you were probably subjected to a gauntlet of GDPR notifications from the websites that you frequent, including ProgrammableWeb. They may not have even mentioned GDPR or the General Data Protection Regulation. But the sudden onslaught of these messages while visiting those sites, or via email, or both was unquestionably due to the mad rush by website operators (your’s truly included) to meet the May 25 deadline for complying with the sweeping privacy regulation that was established by the European Commission (EC).
David Berlind is editor-in-chief of ProgrammableWeb.
Cybersecurity solution provider Trend Micro has issued a report that highlights how chat platform APIs can and are being used by cybercriminals to achieve their nefarious objectives.
Because of the degree to which Webhook APIs are involved (an API attack vector not previously discussed on ProgrammableWeb), the warnings and incidents should serve as a wake-up call to API providers and developers when it comes to the sorts of best practices and ongoing vigilance it takes to fully secure their customers and systems.Provided that the incentives are worth it,
