Throughout the past few years, APIs have become the backbone of digital infrastructure. They enable software-to-software communication, improve integration and interoperability, support modular architecture, and more.
But as API use has exploded, so has API traffic volume and complexity, making them increasingly difficult to secure. And the rise of AI agents and automation have complicated matters further.
The result? APIs have become a favourite attack vector for cybercriminals. In the 2025 Wallarm ThreatStats Report, we revealed that amidst these challenges, one truth has become abundantly clear: traditional approaches to API security no longer cut it. Let’s look at why.
API Traffic is Growing in Complexity and Volume
API ecosystems are unrecognizable from those of even a few years ago. Gone are the days when a handful of REST endpoints connected monolithic systems. Today’s APIs span:
- Legacy SOAP services still in production
- Rest and GraphQL interfaces powering mobile apps and web portals
- Event-driven APIs for real-time IoT data
- Specialized connectors in finance, healthcare, and AI
Each of these adds operational overhead, more code paths to secure, and more dependencies between services.
In Q2 2025 alone, Wallarm tracked 639 API-related vulnerabilities, an increase of 10% from Q1 2025. These are not minor misconfigurations; they’re issues that directly enable unauthorized data access, account compromise, or API outages under load.
What’s driving this surge?
- Microservices: Every new microservice brings new APIs, often created by different teams, across different cloud environments, and using different protocols.
- Third-Party Integrations: Business-critical APIs often depend on external providers, meaning that a security gap in someone else’s code can result in a breach of your systems.
- Multi-Cloud Deployments: Many organizations run services across AWS, Azure, GCP, and private data centers, creating a patchwork of architectures with different security models.
The bottom line is that the more complex the architecture, the harder it is to inventory, monitor, and secure every API endpoint.
However, complexity is only half the story.
AI Agents and Automation are Complicating Matters Further
The other half is traffic volume, and, in 2025, AI agents are one of the biggest contributors.
Agentic AI systems, capable of working autonomously, rely on APIs for data retrieval, action execution, and workflow orchestration. Every time an agent interacts with a Customer Experience Management (CEM), processes a payment, fetches external data, or performs any other task, it’s making at least one API call.
In Q1 2025, we analyzed 2,869 security issues in public AI agent GitHub repositories. What did we find? 1,858 (65%) were API-related. The risks ranged from:
- Prompt injection attacks
- Insecure API integrations
- Hardcoded credentials in code
- Dependencies on unmaintained third-party components (CWE-937)
Perhaps most concerning is the persistence of these issues:
- It takes an average of 42 days to close security issues
- Some remained open for over 1200 days
- 25% remain unresolved altogether
This means that known API vulnerabilities in AI agent code are sticking around long enough to make it into production deployments where attackers can exploit them at scale.
Where Traditional API Security Breaks Down
When you combine the sprawling complexity of modern API ecosystems with the unresolved vulnerabilities in AI-powered systems, you get an environment where attackers have more opportunities than ever – and defenders face mounting operational challenges.
In light of these challenges, organizations face four key pain points when securing APIs:
- Complex Architecture: Multiple protocols, clouds and third-party integrations make full API inventory and consistent policy enforcement difficult. Even mature organizations can experience gaps, leaving critical endpoints exposed.
- Latency and Reliability Issues: As API ecosystems expand, performance strain becomes a security concern. Centralized, legacy security controls can exacerbate the problem, introducing latency that impacts users and business operations.
- Limited Visibility: Shadow APIs, zombie endpoints, and undocumented connections often go unmonitored. Without real-time traffic insight, attacks can persist for weeks or months before detection.
- Misaligned Workflows: Development cycles move faster than security processes, meaning vulnerabilities can linger in production long after they’re discovered.
These challenges explain why the current generation of API security tools – built for simpler architectures and predictable traffic patterns – are struggling in the AI era.
Security at the Edge, Without the Complexity
Addressing today’s API security challenges requires protection with modern architectures, not through CDNs that are both costly and ineffective. That’s why we’ve developed Security Edge, a hosted, managed solution designed to capture and secure API traffic at the edge, where it matters most.
With industry-first capabilities that include real-time API traffic visibility, multi-cloud high availability, and mutual TLS (mTLS) encryption, Security Edge delivers protection with greater speed, reliability, and security – without adding complexity or cost. It allows organizations to deploy API protection in minutes – no complex setup, no ongoing maintenance.
Here’s how Security Edge addresses the core challenges of security APIs in the modern threat landscape.
Complex Architectures – Hosted, Managed, Simplified API Protection
Multi-cloud and hybrid architectures often demand complex, fragmented security deployments. Security Edge removes that burden by hosting and managing the entire infrastructure. Filtering nodes are deployed where you need them, automatically updated, and fully monitored – so you can secure diverse environments without adding operational overhead.
Latency and Reliability Issues – Low Latency, Lower Cost
Centralized inspection points slow performance and increase failure risk. Security Edge places enforcement nodes close to your APIs, minimizing round-trip time and reducing bottlenecks. This keeps legitimate traffic fast, even during heavy loads from AI-driven or automated systems, while keeping costs predictable.
Limited Visibility – Real-Time Operational Observability
Shadow APIs and undocumented endpoints thrive when teams can see their own traffic in real time. The Security Edge telemetry portal closes that gap, providing instant visibility into API calls, anomalies, and attack attempts. Teams can detect issues early, respond proactively, and measure security ROI without guesswork.
Misaligned Workflows – Always-On Availability and mTLS Security
Outages and inconsistent authentication polices disrupt operations and delay remediation. Security Edge ensures continuous protection with multi-cloud high availability, so your APIs stay online even during provider outages. And with mTLS support, every connection between Wallarm and your origin servers is encrypted and authenticated, meeting compliance requirements while eliminating a key attack vector.
Ready to try it for yourself? Sign up for the Free API Security Tier.
The post The API Security Dilemma: Why Traditional Approaches Are Failing in the AI Era appeared first on Wallarm.