The Salt Security whitepaper outlines best practices for securing APIs across their lifecycle. Core recommendations include secure design (requirements, threat modeling, business logic reviews), strong documentation (machine-readable formats to prevent drift), and continuous discovery of APIs including dependencies. Security testing should combine static analysis, dependency checks, fuzzing, and pentesting. Key defenses involve encryption, strong authentication (OAuth2, mTLS), runtime protection with AI/ML, and mediation through gateways. Logging, monitoring, and SecOps integration are essential, with API-specific incident response playbooks. A layered, continuous approach helps prevent abuse, data exposure, and downtime while enabling innovation.

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