Conducting threat modeling of APIs

Another advantage of a shift-left approach to API development is that it allows security and development teams to participate in joint threat modeling activities. While a detailed description of threat modeling is beyond the scope of this book, the concept is a simple one (from the Threat Modeling Manifesto):

1. What are we working on?
2. What can go wrong?
3. What are we going to do about it?
4. Did we do a good enough job?

The value of threat modeling is best demonstrated with an example. Let us revisit the vulnerability affecting the website of a global shipping company covered in Chapter 4. The website developers made three basic errors in their design:

• They relied on security by obscurity by returning a map image—the researchers were able to get an exact postcode from the maps by searching the street names
• They did not rate-limit their tracking-query endpoint, which allowed the researchers to guess the parcel...