In today’s hyper-connected digital landscape, APIs are the lifeblood of innovation, powering everything from customer experiences to internal operations. However, with this growing reliance on APIs comes a dark side—zombie and shadow APIs. These hidden, forgotten, or undocumented endpoints present significant security risks that traditional approaches simply can’t address. In this post, we’ll explore why these APIs are so dangerous and why Salt Security is the only solution capable of securing your entire API ecosystem.

What Are Zombie and Shadow APIs?

Before diving into the risks, it’s essential to understand what we mean by zombie and shadow APIs:

• Zombie APIs are endpoints that were once used but are now outdated, deprecated, or forgotten. These can linger in your environment long after they’re needed, exposing potential vulnerabilities.
• Shadow APIs are those created without the knowledge or approval of security teams. They often emerge when development teams build new endpoints without properly documenting or integrating them into the formal API management processes.

Both types of APIs are typically overlooked by traditional security tools, yet they are ripe targets for attackers. Unmonitored and unmanaged, these endpoints can provide easy access points for data breaches, unauthorized access, and other malicious activities.

The Risks of Zombie and Shadow APIs

The hidden nature of these APIs makes them particularly dangerous. Here are a few key reasons why:

1. Lack of Visibility: Without complete visibility into your API inventory, it’s impossible to secure what you don’t know exists. Zombie and shadow APIs are often undocumented, making it easy for them to fall under the radar.
2. Inconsistent Security Posture: These APIs might not adhere to current security standards, leaving them vulnerable to attacks like SQL injection, authentication bypasses, or data exfiltration.
3. Compliance and Data Privacy Risks: Undocumented APIs can inadvertently expose sensitive data, leading to compliance violations and hefty fines under regulations like GDPR and CCPA.
4. Operational Inefficiencies: Managing zombie and shadow APIs drains resources and introduces unnecessary complexity. Developers and security teams waste valuable time tracking down and mitigating issues with APIs that shouldn’t even exist.

Why Traditional Tools Fail to Address These Issues

Legacy security tools and API management platforms are ill-equipped to handle the dynamic and often chaotic nature of modern API environments. They rely on manual processes, static documentation, or simple API gateways that can’t adapt to the fluid development cycles and sprawling microservices architectures seen today. This leaves a critical gap in security that attackers are all too eager to exploit.

How Salt Security Solves the Zombie and Shadow API Problem

Salt Security’s API Protection Platform stands alone in its ability to discover, monitor, and secure every API in your environment—no matter how obscure or hidden it may be. Here’s how:

1. Comprehensive API Discovery: Salt Security continuously and automatically discovers all APIs in your environment, including zombie and shadow APIs. Our platform dynamically maps your entire API landscape, providing the full visibility you need to identify risks and eliminate blind spots.
2. API Posture Governance: Once discovered, Salt Security allows you to apply posture governance rules to bring them into compliance with your organization’s regulatory or industry-specific guidelines. This helps to dramatically lower the risk profile that these shadow and zombie APIs presented before.
3. Advanced Behavioral Analysis: Using machine learning and AI, Salt Security analyzes the behavior of every API, identifying anomalies, outdated endpoints, and undocumented activity that could indicate a zombie or shadow API. This proactive approach lets you detect issues before they become full-blown security incidents.
4. Real-time Threat Detection and Response: Our platform doesn’t just discover hidden APIs—it actively protects them. Salt Security’s real-time threat detection capabilities ensure that even the most obscure APIs are monitored and secured against attacks. Deep insights into each API’s behavior allow us to quickly identify and mitigate threats specific to zombie and shadow APIs.
5. Extend API Security Left: Salt Security integrates seamlessly into your development pipeline, ensuring that zombie and shadow APIs are addressed at the earliest stages of development. By embedding governance and security into the CI/CD process, we help prevent the creation of risky, undocumented APIs from the start.

Why Salt Security Is the Only True Solution

While other solutions may claim to offer API protection, none provide the end-to-end capabilities needed to fully secure zombie and shadow APIs. Salt Security offers the most comprehensive AI-infused platform for API security, combining deep discovery, continuous monitoring, governance, and proactive threat detection. Our solution not only finds hidden APIs—it safeguards them, ensuring your organization’s API landscape remains resilient, compliant, and secure.

Conclusion

Zombie and shadow APIs represent a hidden yet significant threat to your organization’s security posture. With traditional tools falling short, it’s time to rethink your API security strategy. Salt Security’s unique capabilities make it the only solution capable of addressing the full spectrum of API threats—including those you can’t see.

By choosing Salt Security, you can rest assured that your APIs—documented or not—are fully protected, enabling your business to innovate without compromise.

If you want to learn more about Salt and how we can help you on your API Security journey through discovery, posture management, and run-time threat protection, please contact us, schedule a demo, or check out our website.

*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Salt Security blog authored by Eric Schwake. Read the original post at: https://salt.security/blog/the-hidden-dangers-of-zombie-and-shadow-apis--and-why-only-salt-security-can-tackle-them