Nanhi Singh | Head of Application Security Products and Chief Imperva Customer Officer
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Nanhi Singh | Head of Application Security Products and Chief Imperva Customer Officer
More About This Author >
As we step into 2025, the critical importance of application and API security has never been more evident. In 2024, APIs solidified their role as the backbone of digital innovation. However, this surge in API adoption has also expanded the attack surface, with 27% of API attacks targeting business logic vulnerabilities, a 10% increase from the previous year. Compounding the challenge, 46% of Account Takeover (ATO) attacks focused on API endpoints, up from 35% in 2022.
These figures illustrate the dual-edged sword of API-driven transformation—while enabling connectivity and efficiency, they also create new vulnerabilities. As businesses continue to embrace APIs as a cornerstone of their digital strategies, the imperative to secure these critical pathways grows. The question for 2025 isn’t just about defending against API-specific threats but proactively building a secure, resilient infrastructure to support innovation without compromise.
DevSecOps Adoption Driven by API Growth
2025 marks four years of the API boom. Imperva research revealed that the average enterprise managed 613 API endpoints last year, while API traffic constituted over 71% of web traffic. Unfortunately, APIs' seamless data integration capabilities make them a lucrative target for attackers. API-related security issues now cost organizations up to $87 billion annually.
The growing risks associated with APIs will push organizations to strengthen their security from the outset of development in 2025. As more businesses adopt APIs, we’ll see a shift toward DevSecOps practices, embedding security into development processes.
Increased Focus on API Discovery
Similarly, as the API volume and threats increase and API discovery tools become more common, organizations will be forced to focus more on API discovery in 2025. Businesses can only protect themselves by building continuous visibility, categorization, and monitoring of data that flows through APIs. Moreover, by uncovering hidden APIs, software developers and security administrators can gain a more accurate insight into how to address potential security issues.
API Security Maturity in 2025
Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) are increasingly aware of the number of APIs within their organizations. This realization is driving a concerted effort to secure APIs, meaning API security will reach a new level of maturity in 2025.
As such, this year will mark a pivotal moment in which the majority of enterprises either adopt advanced API security measures—such as automated remediation—or include them in their strategic plans for the next 24 months.
API-Related Breaches and LLMs
As organizations continue to embrace large language model (LLM) based applications, custom components such as LLM agents will become increasingly widespread.
Because these components often rely on APIs to function and integrate with other systems, in 2025, we will likely witness at least one high-profile security breach involving an LLM application, specifically related to vulnerabilities in its API connections. This breach will attract considerable attention, highlighting the urgent need for more robust API security measures.
Prompt Injection and AI Security Risks
Generative AI is one of the most exciting technologies in the world right now. However, it has also introduced a new threat vector—prompt injection—for which little to no security is currently available. In 2025, a prompt injection attack will likely result in a leading global company suffering a significant intellectual property breach.
This breach will plunge AI into the ‘trough of disillusionment’ faster than anticipated. The security risks that become apparent due to this breach will rattle corporate confidence and undermine AI systems' perceived benefits and reliability.
Generative AI and Cybercrime
Generative AI has already lowered the entry barrier for cybercriminals, allowing even inexperienced actors to launch relatively sophisticated attacks quickly, easily, and at scale. This problem is likely to worsen throughout next year.
In 2025, we could well see a cyberattack tool that requires only the name of a corporate target to set off a series of malicious activities. Cybercriminals could use this tool to generate and send phishing emails automatically. Once inside a target network, they could leverage the technology to gain further access. The ease of use and effectiveness of these tools will likely increase the overall volume and sophistication of cyberattacks.
Open-Source Supply Chain Attacks
As supply chains become more complex and interconnected, we will likely witness a significant open-source supply chain attack, like the XZ Utils (SSH) attack, in 2024—only with a higher probability of success. As such, organizations must adopt a multi-layered security approach to reduce the risk of these attacks.
This approach includes implementing stringent security measures like regular code audits, automated vulnerability scanning, and robust access controls, as well as sharing threat intelligence and best practices within the cybersecurity community. Additionally, maintaining a clear inventory of all software components and their dependencies will help organizations quickly identify and address vulnerabilities.
eBPF Will Transform Security Controls
The Extended Berkeley Packet Filter (eBPF) allows custom code execution within an operating system's kernel, enhancing security through real-time monitoring and advanced threat detection. In 2025, it will likely revolutionize security by enabling policy enforcement directly within the operating system kernel on both Linux and Windows systems.
This powerful technology will replace traditional, cumbersome security controls with a more efficient and flexible standard. It will particularly come into its own for protecting complex systems and applications, including those leveraging LLMs.
Stay Secure in 2025 with Imperva and Thales
Thales and Imperva provide innovative platforms designed to reduce the complexity and risks of managing and protecting more applications, data, and identities than any other company can. Our solutions enable over 35,000 organizations to deliver trusted digital services to billions of consumers worldwide every day.
Contact us to find out how we can secure your organization in 2025.