Plan a Lifecycle Strategy
Implementation Effort: Medium
Planning a lifecycle strategy requires collaboration between API owners, security teams, and platform administrators to define onboarding, monitoring, and decommissioning processes.
User Impact: Low
This planning activity is handled by administrators and security teams; no direct user involvement is required.
Overview
Microsoft Defender for APIs provides full lifecycle protection for APIs—from onboarding and classification to threat detection and decommissioning. A lifecycle strategy ensures that APIs are continuously monitored, evaluated for risk, and retired securely when no longer in use.
Key components of a lifecycle strategy include:
- Onboarding: Ensure APIs are published in Azure API Management and onboarded into Defender for APIs.
- Visibility & Inventory: Use the API Security dashboard in Defender for Cloud to maintain an up-to-date inventory of all managed APIs.
- Security Posture Management: Regularly review security findings and apply recommendations to harden APIs.
- Data Sensitivity Classification: Classify APIs based on the sensitivity of the data they handle to prioritize protection.
- Threat Detection & Response: Monitor API traffic for anomalies and integrate with SIEM tools for incident response.
- Decommissioning: Identify inactive or unused APIs (e.g., no traffic in 30 days) and retire them securely to reduce attack surface.
Without a defined lifecycle strategy, APIs may remain exposed after they are no longer in use, or lack consistent monitoring and classification. This capability supports the Zero Trust principle of "Assume breach" by ensuring continuous visibility and control over the entire API lifecycle.