Enterprises Fear Continued API Sprawl, Security Weaknesses

There’s no doubt that APIs enable developers to better customize their applications. Yet the continued growth and success of APIs as the glue that holds together digital transformation is proving to increase risk and create API manageability challenges.

Axway’s 2022 Open Everything Strategy Survey results revealed the top concerns among 1,000 IT managers, architects and developers, and APIs are absolutely a major concern.

Organizations rely on their APIs for many things one would expect: Enterprises turn to them to provide systems integration (44%), access to cloud applications (35%), to develop an extended network (35%), build new lines of business (24%) and, finally, addressing internal needs (23%). Also, as one might expect, organizations turn to managed file transfer to securely share critical business data (51%), share product information and collect data from customers (27%), share product information within a business ecosystem (10%) and guarantee on-time delivery (12%).

To continue reaping these benefits, organizations are increasing their API management budgets. When asked if their API management budgets have increased or decreased during the past two years, 25% reported their budgets rose by at least 25%, with 34% citing budgets increased by up to 25%. And 31% reported their budgets remained flat, while 13% of respondents reported budgets decreased up to 25% and 4% saw their budgets decrease by 25% or more.

Not surprisingly, based on the above results, when creating an API, 30% cited security as the most important criterion and 48% of respondents said the same when setting up a new MFT service. Security even surpassed successful API adoption as a priority. Only 15% said that adoption and consumption of APIs were the most important. Additionally, only 14% cited customer experience and ease of API management as the most important criteria.

This increased reliance on APIs comes at a price: More tenuous data security and API sprawl. In fact, securing data and controlling API sprawl were the two top concerns at 68% and 48% respectively.

When it came to securing APIs and MFTs, 59% said user authentication is their main method for securing APIs. When it came to securing the cloud, 53% cited having to deal with various security requirements for different regional cloud infrastructure providers, while 55% cited tracking and controlling the flow of personal data into and through the cloud.

The biggest barrier to future success with APIs isn’t security; it’s talent. The majority of respondents (86%) did say that they have concerns about the lack of skilled software and IT infrastructure talent they will need to innovate.

Conducted between July 21, 2022 and August 16, 2022, Axway’s survey garnered nearly 1,000 responses from API and MFT professionals.