---
title: "API Protection: Secure Your APIs at the Edge"
description: "Authenticate, validate and rate-limit every API call at the edge, blocking OWASP API Top 10 abuse, bots and data exfiltration before traffic reaches your origin."
canonical_url: https://optimi.com/en/security/api-protection
md_url: https://optimi.com/en/security/api-protection.md
last_updated: 2026-09-04
---

# API Protection

Authentication, validation and abuse defense for every endpoint, enforced at the edge before requests reach your origin.

APIs are the backbone of modern web, mobile and partner integrations, which makes them
one of the largest and most exposed attack surfaces you operate. Our **API protection**
enforces strong authentication, validates every payload and inspects each call at the
edge, so abusive, automated and malformed requests are stopped before they ever reach
your origin.

*Every API call is authenticated and validated at the edge, legitimate clients pass through while abusive automation is blocked at the source.*

- API clients (Web, mobile, partners)
- Abusive automation (Scraping & credential abuse)
- Exfiltration attempts (OWASP API Top 10)
- Optimi Edge
- Calls delivered (Authenticated & valid)
- Abuse blocked (Stopped at the edge)

## Built for the way APIs are attacked

- **Authentication enforced** — Strong authentication and authorization are checked on every request at the edge. Tokens are verified, broken-object-level-authorization is caught, and business-logic abuse is shut down before it reaches your application.
- **Schema validation** — Each request and response is validated against your API schema. Malformed, oversized or unexpected payloads are rejected automatically, closing the door on injection and parsing exploits.
- **Abuse detection** — Scraping, credential abuse and data exfiltration are detected through behavioural analysis. Suspicious clients are throttled or blocked while legitimate integrations keep their full performance.

> **Cover the whole OWASP API Top 10**
>
> From broken authorization to unrestricted resource consumption, the OWASP API
>   Security Top 10 maps the risks that matter. Edge enforcement addresses them in one
>   place, so a single misconfigured endpoint cannot expose your data.

## Main features

- **Authentication & authorization** — Tokens and access scopes are verified on every call before it reaches your origin.
- **Schema & payload validation** — Requests are checked against your schema and malformed payloads are rejected.
- **[Rate & quota controls](/en/security/rate-limiter)** — Sensitive endpoints get fine-grained limits per client and per route.
- **API discovery** — Shadow and undocumented APIs are surfaced so nothing slips past your defenses.
- **[Bot & automation defense](/en/security/bot-management)** — Automated abuse is identified and stopped before it reaches your origin.
- **[Leak prevention & WAF](/en/security/waf)** — Sensitive-data leaks are blocked alongside the WAF at the edge.

## Related guides
- [api-security](/en/guides/tags/api-security)

[Get in touch](/en/contact): Ready to secure your APIs? — Talk to our team about authenticating, validating and rate-limiting every endpoint at the edge.