API Security Best Practices: Rate Limiting and Token Management
Rate limiting and token management are two critical components of securing APIs. Get these wrong, and your system can face denial-of-service attacks, unauthorized access, and data breaches. Let’s dive into practical best practices, common pitfalls, and real-world examples. Visual Overview: graph LR subgraph JWT Token A[Header] --> B[Payload] --> C[Signature] end A --> D["{ alg: RS256, typ: JWT }"] B --> E["{ sub, iss, exp, iat, ... }"] C --> F["HMACSHA256(base64(header) + base64(payload), secret)"] style A fill:#667eea,color:#fff style B fill:#764ba2,color:#fff style C fill:#f093fb,color:#fff The Problem Imagine your API is suddenly hit by thousands of requests per second. Without proper rate limiting, your server could go down, affecting all legitimate users. Similarly, if tokens aren’t managed correctly, attackers can gain unauthorized access, leading to data theft and other malicious activities. ...