Penetration Testing Services Cloud Pentesting Penetration Network Pentesting Application Pentesting Web Application Pentesting Social Engineering July 24, 2025 On this page API Security from Design to Runtime: A CTEM-Driven Lifecycle Approach Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are among the key drivers of the modern digital economy. By facilitating integration and interoperability between different kinds of applications, APIs enable organizations to streamline workflows, access new revenue opportunities, foster innovation, and accelerate business productivity and growth. However, APIs also create security risks that expose businesses to abuse, fraud, account takeovers, as well as repeated cyberattacks and data breaches that could compromise their systems, disrupt operations, and result in the theft or compromise of business-critical data and intellectual property. A 2025 study on the Global State of API Security that surveyed 1,500+ security professionals spotlights some of the challenges of API security:1 More than half (53%) of the organizations believe that API vulnerabilities are growing. 54% say that API sprawl is the biggest challenge to API security. 57% have experienced at least one data breach caused by API exploitation in the past two years. In general, respondents estimate that they can only prevent 24% of API-related attacks. These findings clearly underscore the need for comprehensive API security measures backed by a robust security approach. Traditional security tools cannot fit the bill alone. So what can? Enter Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM). Where Conventional API Security Solutions Fall Short API risk is expected to continue steadily increasing over the coming years, and conventional security solutions like API gateways and firewalls cannot mitigate these risks alone. For one, these products can rarely detect or mitigate real-time threats against APIs – threats that are increasing in both frequency and sophistication. They also cannot always differentiate between fraudulent activities like credential stuffing, data scraping, and injection attacks from legitimate activities at the API layer. Legacy measures like API gateways often cannot identify sneaky attacks or vulnerabilities in internal APIs, and struggle to detect and keep out every threat, making them incapable of reducing the API attack surface or preventing API attacks effectively. To protect against modern-day targeted and sophisticated API threats, a proactive approach to API security is critical. One effective approach is Continuous Threat Exposure Management. How to Leverage CTEM for Robust API Security CTEM is a well-structured, five-stage, priority-based security framework used to proactively identify, address, and mitigate security risks – including API security risks. In the context of API security, the aim is to help organizations identify and prioritize API risks early on so they can effectively validate and minimize the most critical exposures and vulnerabilities. Unlike traditional security approaches like vulnerability management, CTEM doesn’t aim for risk elimination. Rather, it acknowledges that this would be practically impossible. By focusing on vulnerability prioritization before mitigation, it aims for risk reduction, which is a much more realistic and achievable goal for API security. Each stage of the CTEM lifecycle focuses on specific activities and goals. Here is how each phase applies to API security specifically: CTEM Stage Activities Goals 1. Scoping Identify all APIs that add to the organization’s attack surface. Understand the scope of API exposures to inform remediation activities. 2. Discovery Inventory all APIs. Assess their vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and other risks. Build a risk profile for each asset based on business risk and potential impact. 3. Prioritization Prioritize API threats most likely to be exploited by urgency, security, and level of risk posed to the organization. Remediate the most critical vulnerabilities that pose the highest risk to the organization’s systems. 4. Validation Simulate and analyze potential attack pathways using advanced attack techniques. Verify potential exposures and confirm possible impact on company systems. Understand how a potential API attack might affect the organization’s systems. Test and refine existing security defenses and response plans. 5. Mobilization Establish a repeatable process for managing API threat exposures. Remove any obstacles to approvals and mitigation deployments. Implement key remediation activities. Mitigate the most important API vulnerabilities and threats to maximize risk reduction. By implementing all these stages of the CTEM lifecycle into API security, organizations can: Simplify real-time API monitoring Enhance visibility into the entire API landscape Ease API attack surface management Tangibly minimize API security risks CTEM: An Integrated Solutions Approach for Maximum API Security CTEM typically leverages multiple tools and capabilities to minimize the risk of breaches targeted at APIs. For example, Adversarial Exposure Validation (AEV) solutions automate multi-step, complex, real-world attack techniques and scenarios to highlight which exposures need immediate remediation. This information allows organizations to automatically identify and validate real exposures, understand which security controls are and are not effective, and visualize which attack paths a real attacker could take to move laterally in the event of an API exploit. Similarly, Penetration Testing as a Service (PTaaS) and continuous pentesting solutions provide ongoing, expert-led validation of API vulnerabilities using manual techniques, automation, or a combination of the two. These approaches enable organizations to uncover logic flaws, misconfigurations, and other vulnerabilities that traditional scanners often miss. By continuously testing APIs in real-world conditions, especially early in the development lifecycle, security teams and developers gain deeper insight into where to focus remediation efforts and get the insights they need to fix issues at the code or design level before they can be exploited. These solutions especially add value to the prioritization, validation, and mobilization stages of the CTEM lifecycle for API security. Through internal and external API pentesting, organizations can effectively: Identify and mitigate potential security risks before they are integrated into applications Prevent the exploitation of those vulnerabilities by threat actors Validate and fix weaknesses in security controls Some API penetration testing solutions also incorporate fuzz testing, a technique that automatically generates and sends unexpected or distorted inputs to APIs to uncover hidden vulnerabilities like input validation errors, authorization bypasses, or buffer overflows. Fuzzing is especially valuable in the Discovery and Validation phases of the CTEM lifecycle, as it helps security teams identify issues early in development and continuously verify the robustness of APIs in production. When integrated into a broader API security strategy, fuzz testing enhances security from design to runtime, reducing the attack surface and improving resilience against zero-day exploits. Strengthen Your API Security with BreachLock’s CTEM-Aligned Solutions Continuous Threat Exposure Management is one of the most effective approaches to maximize API security. The right combination of PTaaS, AEV, and other solutions empowers organizations to identify, validate, and mitigate API risk scalably. Together, these tools form a powerful CTEM-aligned tech stack that helps businesses build a continuous, adaptive security program for their API landscape. To support a centralized and actionable approach to managing API threat exposures and security testing, BreachLock offers PTaaS, AEV, and continuous pentesting, enabling you to strengthen and consolidate your API security program with one trusted provider. To learn how BreachLock can support and simplify your API security program in alignment with CTEM, map your API attack surface, and validate attack paths in one place, schedule a demo today. 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 Traceable. (2025). 2025 Global State of API Security. https://www.traceable.ai/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/2025-Global-State-of-API-Security.pdf 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. 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