API Security Hardening

Table of Contents

• [Overview](#overview)

• [When to Use](#when-to-use)

• [Quick Start](#quick-start)

• [Reference Guides](#reference-guides)

• [Best Practices](#best-practices)

Overview

Implement comprehensive API security measures including authentication, authorization, rate limiting, input validation, and attack prevention to protect against common vulnerabilities.

When to Use

• New API development

• Security audit remediation

• Production API hardening

• Compliance requirements

• High-traffic API protection

• Public API exposure

Quick Start

Minimal working example:

// secure-api.js - Comprehensive API security

const express = require("express");

const helmet = require("helmet");

const rateLimit = require("express-rate-limit");

const mongoSanitize = require("express-mongo-sanitize");

const xss = require("xss-clean");

const hpp = require("hpp");

const cors = require("cors");

const jwt = require("jsonwebtoken");

const validator = require("validator");

class SecureAPIServer {

  constructor() {

    this.app = express();

    this.setupSecurityMiddleware();

    this.setupRoutes();

  }

  setupSecurityMiddleware() {

    // 1. Helmet - Set security headers

    this.app.use(

      helmet({

        contentSecurityPolicy: {

          directives: {

            defaultSrc: ["'self'"],

// ... (see reference guides for full implementation)

Reference Guides

Detailed implementations in the references/ directory:

Guide

Contents

Node.js/Express API Security

Node.js/Express API Security

Python FastAPI Security

Python FastAPI Security

API Gateway Security Configuration

API Gateway Security Configuration

Best Practices

✅ DO

• Use HTTPS everywhere

• Implement rate limiting

• Validate all inputs

• Use security headers

• Log security events

• Implement CORS properly

• Use strong authentication

• Version your APIs

❌ DON'T

• Expose stack traces

• Return detailed errors

• Trust user input

• Use HTTP for APIs

• Skip input validation

• Ignore rate limiting