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Blog • • 4 minute read

From API Discovery to Defense: Get continuous protection with F5 WAAP

APIs are the hidden engines of our connected world. Your banking app, your rideshare, even the weather app you check before stepping outside—all rely on APIs to deliver data in real time. From the essential to the mundane, we interact with them countless times a day.

In this blog

  1. Document, Inventory, Protect
  2. Shadow APIs: The Hidden Vulnerabilities
  3. Shining a Light with API Discovery
  4. Dashboards: Visibility that Drives Action
  5. The Cost of Ignoring the Threat
  6. Building Security into DevSecOps
  7. Conclusion

APIs are the hidden engines of our connected world. Your banking app, your rideshare, even the weather app you check before stepping outside—all rely on APIs to deliver data in real time. From the essential to the mundane, we interact with them countless times a day.

But with this explosion in API use comes risk. APIs have become one of the fastest-growing attack surfaces for malicious actors. In the past few years, breaches at social media platforms, fitness firms, and countless other industries have made headlines. Reports now estimate that API vulnerabilities are costing businesses billions of dollars annually.

It's clear: API security is no longer optional. It's mission-critical.

Enter F5 Distributed Cloud Web App and API Protection (XC WAAP)—a solution designed to help organizations discover, inventory, and protect APIs, both documented and hidden.

 Document, Inventory, Protect

Every secure API journey begins with documentation. For RESTful APIs, that often means publishing an OpenAPI (Swagger) specification. With F5 XC WAAP, security teams can upload OpenAPI spec files directly into the platform to create a comprehensive inventory of APIs—covering endpoints, expected operations (HTTP methods), and usage.

That inventory serves as the foundation for a strong security policy. But in reality, documentation often falls by the wayside under deadline pressure. And the truth is simple: you can't protect what you can't see.

 Shadow APIs: The Hidden Vulnerabilities

In many environments, Shadow APIs—rogue or undocumented APIs—quietly exist outside of official management and security processes. Whether they're overlooked by developers or stem from third-party integrations, these APIs remain unseen by your security stack and unprotected.

Attackers know this. Shadow APIs are such a risk that they're highlighted in the OWASP API Security Top 10 (API9:2019 – Improper Assets Management). Finding and securing them is a critical step for reducing organizational risk.

 Shining a Light with API Discovery

F5 XC WAAP includes API Discovery to bring Shadow APIs out of the dark. By analyzing sampled request data, the platform learns the schema of these hidden APIs, reverse-engineers an OpenAPI specification, and adds it to your API inventory.

This process runs continuously, helping security teams stay ahead of undocumented endpoints. While it doesn't replace good documentation practices, it ensures that nothing slips through the cracks.

 Dashboards: Visibility that Drives Action

Security is about visibility, and F5 XC WAAP delivers it with powerful dashboards.

  • Through the API Endpoints Dashboard, teams gain insights into:
  • Top attacked APIs (by attack percentage)
  • Sensitive data types exposed
  • Total API calls (broken down by response code)
  • Most active APIs

The dashboard also includes a detailed table view that shows sensitive data findings, authentication status, risk scores, and more. This consolidated intelligence helps security teams quickly spot vulnerabilities, prioritize responses, and strengthen their API security posture.

 The Cost of Ignoring the Threat

The stakes couldn't be higher. APIs handle some of the most sensitive data in existence—from financial records to personal health information. Recent breaches have exposed everything from credit scores to login credentials of tens of millions of users.

The reality is stark: unprotected APIs are an open door for attackers.

 Building Security into DevSecOps

API security doesn't end with discovery—it must be seamlessly integrated into the DevSecOps pipeline. With F5 XC WAAP, organizations can deploy API Discovery and protection as Infrastructure as Code (IaC), ensuring security is embedded throughout the software delivery lifecycle.

 Conclusion

APIs power the modern digital experience, but they also represent one of the most critical attack surfaces today. From proper documentation and inventory to Shadow API discovery and real-time visibility, F5 Distributed Cloud WAAP equips organizations with the tools to defend their most critical digital assets.

With F5, you can secure your known endpoints, shine a light on hidden APIs, and confidently protect the sensitive data your customers trust you with.

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