Table of Contents
- Executive Summary
- Application and API Security Sector Brief
- Decision Criteria Analysis
- Analyst’s Outlook
- Methodology
- About GigaOm
- Copyright
1. Executive Summary
Application and API security technology encompasses a suite of tools and practices designed to protect software applications and their interconnected APIs from an array of cyberthreats. These solutions safeguard both the user-facing components of applications and the back-end services that power them, ensuring data integrity, preventing unauthorized access, and maintaining the overall security of digital ecosystems.
The importance of this technology cannot be overstated in today’s interconnected digital landscape. As organizations increasingly rely on web applications and APIs to conduct business, share data, and provide services, they face growing security challenges.
Application and API security solutions address these challenges by protecting against vulnerabilities, detecting and preventing attacks, and ensuring compliance with data protection regulations. The benefits include reduced risk of data breaches, improved customer trust, and the ability to deploy and scale digital services rapidly without compromising security.
This technology is crucial for a wide range of stakeholders. Development teams rely on it to build secure applications, operations teams use it to maintain the safety of deployed services, and security teams depend on it for threat detection and response. Additionally, business leaders and compliance officers value these solutions for their role in risk management and regulatory compliance.
Business Imperative
Revenue protection stands at the forefront of this imperative. Digital service disruptions can result in losses exceeding $100,000 per hour, while security breaches can lead to immediate revenue loss through fraud. More concerning is the long-term impact on revenue streams. Customer churn following security incidents creates lasting damage to business sustainability.
Brand and reputation management have become increasingly critical in our interconnected business environment. High-profile API breaches inevitably make headlines, eroding customer trust and providing competitors with opportunities to gain market advantage. The recovery period from reputation damage often extends over years, requiring significant resource investment to rebuild market confidence.
The regulatory landscape adds another layer of complexity. Growing requirements under frameworks such as GDPR, CCPA, and PSD2 mandate robust API security measures. Organizations that fail to comply can face potential penalties in the millions, often accompanied by mandatory public disclosure requirements that compound reputational damage.
In addition to the above, organizations can also expect to benefit from increased innovation velocity, operational efficiency gains, and strategic advantages driven by robust application and API security.
The cost of implementing comprehensive application and API security is consistently outweighed by the extensive risks and potential losses of insufficient protection, making it a fundamental component of business risk management and growth strategy.
Sector Adoption Score
To help executives and decision-makers assess the potential impact and value of deploying an application and API security solution, this GigaOm Key Criteria report provides a structured assessment of the sector across five factors: benefit, maturity, urgency, impact, and effort. By scoring each factor based on how strongly it compels or deters the adoption of an application and API security solution, we provide an overall Sector Adoption Score (Figure 1) of 4.2 out of 5, with 5 indicating the strongest possible recommendation to adopt. This strongly indicates that organizations should prioritize the implementation of these solutions to protect digital assets, ensure compliance, and maintain competitive advantage in an increasingly threatening digital landscape.
The factors contributing to the Sector Adoption Score for application and API security are explained in more detail in the Sector Brief section that follows.
Key Criteria for Evaluating Application and API Security Solutions
Sector Adoption Score
Figure 1. Sector Adoption Score for Application and API Security
This is the fourth year that GigaOm has reported on the application and API security space in the context of our Key Criteria and Radar reports. This report builds on our previous analysis and considers how the market has evolved over the last year.
This GigaOm Key Criteria report highlights the capabilities (table stakes, key features, and emerging features) and nonfunctional requirements (business criteria) for selecting an effective application and API security solution. The companion GigaOm Radar report identifies vendors and products that excel in those decision criteria. Together, these reports provide an overview of the market, identify leading application and API security offerings, and help decision-makers evaluate these solutions so they can make a more informed investment decision.
GIGAOM KEY CRITERIA AND RADAR REPORTS
The GigaOm Key Criteria report provides a detailed decision framework for IT and executive leadership assessing enterprise technologies. Each report defines relevant functional and nonfunctional aspects of solutions in a sector. The Key Criteria report informs the GigaOm Radar report, which provides a forward-looking assessment of vendor solutions in the sector.