Penetration Testing Services Cloud Pentesting Penetration Network Pentesting Application Pentesting Web Application Pentesting Social Engineering July 7, 2025 On this page AI Meets API Security – CTEM for the AI Era Today, Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) fuel digital innovation and transformation. They provide a common language, rules, definitions, and protocols that enable different software systems to communicate and share data, allowing software users to easily access and interact with different services with minimal hassle. That said, these benefits have contributed to the increasing popularity and ubiquity of APIs, especially with the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) further accelerating API development and usage. The growing ubiquity of APIs also has a downside: APIs pose a serious security risk to systems, users, and data — exposing endpoints, application logic, and sensitive data to enable application interaction. Threat actors can leverage these exposed elements to gain foothold and cause untold damage, making APIs a particularly attractive attack vector in the AI age. One of the most effective ways to manage and mitigate API security risks is to leverage the combined power of Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) and AI. This blog explores how CTEM and AI can work together to boost API security and strengthen the resilience of API-first architectures. The Expanding API Attack Surface The usage of APIs has exploded in recent years, with one recent report revealing that most enterprise-level organizations now maintain over 1000 APIs. But APIs are not just increasing in number; they’re also becoming more complex due to the increasing number of API endpoints.1 The increasing number, scope, and complexity of APIs create numerous security issues for organizations. Many of these issues are the result of these serious risks, listed by the OWASP API Security Project:2 Broken object level authorization Broken authentication Broken object property level authorization Unrestricted resource consumption Broken function level authorization Unrestricted access to sensitive business flows Server-side request forgery (SSRF) Security misconfigurations Improper inventory management Unsafe consumption of APIs By exploiting these risks, adversaries can execute many different types of targeted attacks against APIs, including: Injection attacks DoS attacks Data breaches Content scraping Ransomware Account takeover (ATO) attacks The shift to AI is further propelling API growth and along with it, security concerns. The complex interconnections between AI and APIs facilitate AI-driven automation and power large language models (LLMs) and autonomous AI agents. APIs are also essential for integrating AI into AI-driven apps and tools. However, APIs often access and integrate sensitive data from disparate sources to power AI apps. Adversaries can also use AI to find and exploit vulnerabilities within APIs to execute many types of attacks. These two factors make APIs a top target for cyberattacks in the AI era. API Security: Where Traditional Security Tools Fall Short Traditional security tools are insufficient to manage and mitigate the threats posed by APIs. They lack capabilities for continuous discovery and validation, and so struggle to keep up with dynamic, real-time threats. Consequently, these exposures often go unnoticed until they’re already exploited. Another weakness of traditional tools is that they cannot identify all kinds of API issues. Interactive Application Security Testing (IAST) tools, for example, can identify vulnerabilities related to input validation and data sanitization, but fall short when identifying more complex issues related to API authentication and authorization. Similarly, Static Application Security Testing (SAST) tools are also ineffective at identifying these API-specific issues. Additionally, they cannot understand APIs’ business logic and runtime interactions, rendering them unable to recognize and mitigate real-world API attacks. All these weaknesses create a need for more robust API security tools and a proactive strategic framework for API security. Enter CTEM and AI. Transforming API Security with AI and CTEM As attackers leverage AI to scale and accelerate API exploitation, enterprises must do the same to stay ahead. Fortunately, AI is just as powerful for the benefit of enterprise security teams. AI can also empower API defenders by providing: Automated API discovery and classification Behavioral anomaly detection in API traffic Real-time threat prediction and response AI-enabled security tools with these capabilities enable security teams to stop API attacks in real time before they can cause too much damage. Unlike traditional tools, these AI-enabled tools provide comprehensive, contextual, and up-to-date visibility into the entire API landscape, including how the APIs are configured, what data they access, and how users interact with them. These insights enable defenders to identify anomalies, prioritize genuine threats, and implement robust measures to secure APIs. AI supercharges CTEM by automating discovery, validation, and prioritization, transforming a reactive strategy into a proactive strategy. CTEM is built with three key mandates: Continually monitor the organization’s external surfaces Assess the vulnerabilities of these surfaces Take appropriate and quick action to remediate and reduce the security risk CTEM provides a systematic and proven five-stage framework, including scoping, discovery, prioritization, validation, and mobilization, to improve risk management, enforce security policies, and manage the API attack surface. The CTEM framework is agile and includes well-defined workflows and structured directions, making it ideal for continuously and intelligently securing APIs. To align with CTEM, security teams can integrate AI into API security workflows, empowering defenders to contextualize AI findings, thus enabling smarter prioritization and faster remediation of critical risks. A unified platform that integrates multiple security tools to enable CTEM can be a valuable addition to an API security program. The best platforms support high-frequency assessments across APIs and analyze data from multiple threat exposure management tools, all of which leverage AI and automation at some magnitude, including Penetration Testing as a Service (PTaaS), Attack Surface Management (ASM), and Adversarial Exposure Validation (AEV). Scale Your API Security Program As the API security landscape evolves, API visibility, continuous threat discovery and validation, and continuous assurance are all crucial to fortifying your organization’s digital ecosystem. Traditional security tools cannot keep up with these requirements. For robust, continuous API security and protection, AI and CTEM are not optional, but essential. BreachLock is a global leader in providing advanced offensive security solutions for the API-AI era. The BreachLock Unified Platform enables enterprises to operationalize CTEM, simplifying both periodic and continuous API security testing and prioritization with human-led, AI-powered PTaaS, Continuous Penetration Testing, and Attack Surface Management (ASM). To expand both the breadth and depth of security testing, BreachLock Adversarial Exposure, powered by generative AI, automates multistep, threat-intelligence-led attack scenarios to help enterprises uncover real exposures and prioritize their most high-impact risks. BreachLock AEV not only continuously identifies how an attacker could gain foothold in their network, but what their next move(s) would likely be, giving security teams a significant advantage with the opportunity to proactively rectify those very weaknesses before they can be exploited. To learn more about BreachLock’s CTEM-aligned solutions for API security, contact us today to schedule a free discovery call. About BreachLock BreachLock is a global leader in offensive security, delivering scalable and continuous security testing. Trusted by global enterprises, BreachLock provides human-led and AI-powered attack surface management, penetration testing, red teaming, and adversarial exposure validation (AEV) services that help security teams stay ahead of adversaries. With a mission to make proactive security the new standard, BreachLock is shaping the future of cybersecurity through automation, data-driven intelligence, and expert-driven execution. Know Your Risk. Contact BreachLock today! References Trebble. (2024). Anatomy of an API. https://report.treblle.com/ OWASP. (2023). OWASP API Security Project. https://owasp.org/www-project-api-security/ Author BreachLock Labs Industry recognitions we have earned Tell us about your requirements and we will respond within 24 hours. Fill out the form below to let us know your requirements. We will contact you to determine if BreachLock is right for your business or organization.