Determine API Security Posture Goals
Implementation Effort: Medium
Setting posture goals requires collaboration between security, compliance, and API platform teams to define risk thresholds, data sensitivity policies, and remediation priorities.
User Impact: Low
This activity is handled by security and platform administrators; no direct user involvement is required.
Overview
Determining API security posture goals in Microsoft Defender for APIs involves defining what "secure" means for your API environment and aligning it with organizational risk tolerance and compliance requirements. This is achieved through the Defender Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) plan, which provides continuous assessment of APIs published in Azure API Management.
Key posture goals include:
- Centralized API Inventory: Maintain visibility into all managed APIs through the Defender for Cloud API Security dashboard.
- Risk-Based Recommendations: Prioritize remediation based on exploitability and business impact, such as unauthenticated access, exposure to the internet, or lack of encryption.
- Sensitive Data Classification: Identify APIs that expose sensitive data in URL paths, query parameters, or request/response bodies using Microsoft Purview integration.
- Attack Path Analysis: Understand how APIs connect to backend services (VMs, containers, databases) and identify potential attack paths.
- Inactive API Detection: Flag and decommission APIs with no traffic to reduce attack surface.
- Compliance Alignment: Use sensitivity labels and custom information types to align with internal data governance policies.
Without clear posture goals, organizations may overlook high-risk APIs or fail to prioritize critical vulnerabilities. This capability supports the Zero Trust principle of "Assume breach" by continuously evaluating API exposure and guiding proactive risk mitigation.