Are REST APIs Inherently Insecure?

REST security is a hot topic. One of the reasons for this is the continued blowback from the over-complexity of the WS-* specifications. These specifications,  including WS-Security, WS-Trust, and WS-ReliableMessaging, and were notorious for being difficult to comprehend. In fact, people wrote whole books about Web Services Security :-) . One of the benefits of REST is simplicity. But, on the flipside, the lack of standards for security has led to the proliferation of ad-hoc security approaches such as the use of API Keys. API Keys are frequently used for API "authentication" often without much regard for potential attacks such as replay attacks.

But, by using an API Gateway approach, is it possible to layer on security for REST APIs? Could they (shock, horror) co-exist with heavyweight WS-* style SOAP web services? I'll be talking about this topic in my talk on "Are REST APIs Inherently Insecure" at the ISC2 Security Congress in October in Atlanta . Hope to see you there?

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