API Security Sector Grew 47% in 2022

A Security Yearbook Entry

As we prepare to go to press with Security Yearbook 2023 (pre-order for June delivery here), there will be a flurry of posts on the data we collect and curate for the IT-Harvest platform for researching the cybersecurity industry. Here are the final numbers for the newest category we have added, API Security.

APIs are the glue that connects the millions of apps and data stores that make up the modern web. They are simple in practice, but like all architectures the problem arises when they are deployed without thought given to security. Access is controlled by API keys, which are just long passwords. If they are hard coded or accidentally leaked an attacker can use them to access and download all the data. Like the breach of 37 million customer records from T-Mobile reported this past week.

Of the 17 categories we track, API Security grew the fastest in 2022 with a 47% growth in total head count.

There are 31 vendors that specialize in API Security solutions and another half dozen large vendors that have offerings.

Here are the stand-alone API Security vendors.

We estimate that the market for API Security has already grown to $250 million and will hit $1 billion in three years.