A Study On API Design And Security Mechanisms

Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) have become a fundamental component of modern software systems, enabling seamless communication and integration between distributed applications, cloud services, and microservices architectures. This study examines the principles of effective API design and the security mechanisms required to protect APIs from evolving cyber threats. It explores key design practices such as RESTful architecture, resource-oriented design, versioning, scalability, and performance optimization. The paper also highlights the importance of API documentation, standardization, and usability in enhancing developer experience and system interoperability. On the security front, the study analyzes authentication and authorization mechanisms including OAuth 2. 0, JSON Web Tokens (JWT), API keys, and role-based access control. It further discusses transport-level security using HTTPS/TLS, input validation, rate limiting, and protection against common vulnerabilities such as injection attacks, cross-site scripting (XSS), and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. Emerging approaches such as zero-trust security models and API gateways are also reviewed. The findings emphasize that a well-designed and securely implemented API ecosystem is essential for ensuring reliability, scalability, and data protection in modern applications. \\