Posted on February 22, 2023 (Updated on July 10, 2025)

GeoFence: How to secure its REST API?

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How do you secure your REST API?

5 fundamental strategies for REST API authentication

  1. Basic authentication. Basic authentication is an HTTP-based authentication approach and is the simplest way to secure REST APIs.
  2. API keys.
  3. HMAC encryption.
  4. OAuth 2.0.
  5. OpenID Connect.
  6. Choosing a REST API authentication approach.

 

How to secure an API without authentication?

Encryption — Having encryption enabled on the API and using https using TLS secures the channel as well as the information sent. Rate limiting and throttling — Limiting the number of requests coming into an API helps prevent abuse. Throttling enables the availability of the service for legitimate consumers.
 

How do I add authentication to REST API?

Users of the REST API can authenticate by providing a user ID and password to the REST API login resource with the HTTP POST method. An LTPA token is generated that enables the user to authenticate future requests. This LTPA token has the prefix LtpaToken2 .

Which authorization is best for REST API?

In this article, we’ll show you our best practices for implementing authorization in REST APIs.

  • Always use TLS.
  • Use OAuth2 for single sign on (SSO) with OpenID Connect.
  • Use API keys to give existing users programmatic access.
  • Encourage using good secrets management for API keys.

How do I secure my spring REST API?

Protect REST APIs with Spring Security and JWT

  1. Get the JWT based token from the authentication endpoint, eg /auth/signin .
  2. Extract token from the authentication result.
  3. Set the HTTP header Authorization value as Bearer jwt_token .
  4. Then send a request to access the protected resources.

Is REST API has no built in security?

REST APIs use HTTP and support Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption. TLS is a standard that keeps an internet connection private and checks that the data sent between two systems (a server and a server, or a server and a client) is encrypted and unmodified.
 

How do I provide security to rest Web services?

Use HTTPS/TLS for REST APIs



HTTPS and Transport Layer Security (TLS) offer a secured protocol to transfer encrypted data between web browsers and servers. Apart from other forms of information, HTTPS also helps to protect authentication credentials in transit.
 

How to pass sensitive data in REST API?

You can send your sensitive data in a HTTP header if that is possible. And ofc. you should use HTTPS if you want to send sensitive data to anywhere.
 

Do all APIs need authentication?

There’s always the option of applying no authentication at all. Developers can just make a request to a specific URL and get a response without needing any credentials or an API key.
 

What can I use instead of basic authentication?

Alternatives to Basic Auth



LDAP and Kerberos are both well-established protocols that can be used for authentication, and NTLM is also an option if you’re using Microsoft products exclusively.
 

Can you encrypt an API?

Since REST APIs use HTTP, encryption can be achieved by using the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol or its previous iteration, the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol. These protocols supply the S in “HTTPS” (“S” meaning “secure”) and are the standard for encrypting web pages and REST API communications.