Imagine you are tasked with designing an API for a healthcare system. How would you decide between creating a Public, Private, or Partner API, and what factors would influence your decision?
- Based on the API's audience and usage, you'd choose Private to protect sensitive data.
- Choose Partner to grant limited access to trusted organizations.
- Choose Public to encourage open access to health information.
- Choose all three types to provide maximum flexibility.
When designing a healthcare API, you'd consider the audience, data sensitivity, and the level of trust with potential partners. Public, Private, and Partner APIs cater to different needs, and the choice depends on who needs access and the nature of the data being shared. The decision should be based on a thorough analysis of these factors.
How can API throttling improve the user experience?
- By displaying more ads to users
- By ensuring consistent and reliable performance
- By increasing the API response time
- By requiring users to complete CAPTCHA challenges
API throttling can improve the user experience by ensuring consistent and reliable performance. It prevents a small number of users or applications from overwhelming the API, which can lead to slowdowns for all users. Throttling ensures a smoother, more predictable user experience, making it a valuable strategy.
You are auditing an API for security vulnerabilities. During testing, you discover that the API is susceptible to CSRF attacks. How would you explain the potential risks to the development team and recommend solutions?
- Explain: CSRF allows attackers to perform actions on behalf of an authenticated user. Mitigate: Implement anti-CSRF tokens, use the SameSite attribute, and validate the origin of requests.
- Explain: CSRF enhances security, Mitigate: Encourage CSRF vulnerabilities, share security tokens publicly, disable security headers.
- Explain: CSRF is not a security concern, Mitigate: Continue to ignore it, do not implement any protections.
- Explain: CSRF leads to increased user authentication, Mitigate: Implement proper authentication mechanisms and user tracking.
CSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgery) can allow attackers to perform actions on behalf of authenticated users. To mitigate this risk, you should explain the potential dangers to the development team. Mitigate by implementing anti-CSRF tokens, using the SameSite attribute in cookies, and validating the origin of requests. These measures help protect against CSRF attacks.
How can CORS (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing) issues be handled in APIs created using Node.js and Express?
- Configure CORS middleware and define the allowed origins, methods, and headers for requests.
- CORS issues are handled automatically in Express and Node.js, so no action is required.
- CORS issues can be resolved by disallowing all cross-origin requests.
- Use a third-party API gateway to handle CORS for you.
To handle CORS issues in APIs created with Node.js and Express, you should configure CORS middleware. This middleware allows you to specify the allowed origins, HTTP methods, and headers for incoming requests. Automatically handling CORS is not the default behavior, and disallowing all cross-origin requests is not a practical solution. Using a third-party API gateway may be an option but is not the primary method for handling CORS.
To protect against CSRF attacks, developers can implement _____ to ensure requests are only accepted from trusted sources.
- Authentication
- Cross-origin resource sharing (CORS)
- Encryption
- Rate limiting
To protect against CSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgery) attacks, developers can implement Cross-origin resource sharing (CORS) to ensure that requests are only accepted from trusted sources. CORS helps prevent unauthorized websites from making malicious requests to APIs on behalf of users.
How can API monitoring and analytics help in identifying and preventing security breaches?
- Analyzing historical API usage data
- Detecting security vulnerabilities in the code
- Encrypting all data transmitted via APIs
- Identifying unauthorized access patterns
API monitoring and analytics can help identify and prevent security breaches by detecting unauthorized access patterns. By analyzing historical API usage data, patterns of unusual or suspicious behavior can be spotted, indicating potential security breaches. While detecting vulnerabilities in the code and encrypting data are important security measures, monitoring is essential for identifying and reacting to real-time security threats.
In Express, the app.use() function is used to add ________ that can process incoming requests before they reach the routes.
- Components
- Handlers
- Middleware
- Modules
In Express, the app.use() function is used to add "middleware" that can process incoming requests before they reach the routes. Middleware functions can perform tasks like authentication, logging, or modifying request/response objects.
Which type of API testing focuses on verifying that individual components work as expected in isolation?
- Integration testing
- Performance testing
- System testing
- Unit testing
Unit testing is a type of API testing that focuses on verifying that individual components or functions of an application work as expected in isolation. It involves testing each component in isolation to ensure that it performs its specific functions correctly. Unit testing is an essential part of API testing to validate the smallest building blocks of an application.
Consider a scenario where you need to support legacy systems and ensure strict data integrity. Which API architectural style might be suitable?
- GraphQL
- REST (Representational State Transfer)
- SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol)
- XML-RPC (Remote Procedure Call)
In a scenario involving legacy systems and strict data integrity requirements, SOAP is a viable choice. SOAP provides a well-defined and structured way to ensure data integrity, making it suitable for such scenarios, even though it might be less lightweight than other styles.
Compliance with _____ ensures that APIs handling healthcare data meet the necessary privacy and security standards.
- HIPAA
- JSON
- OAuth2
- REST
Compliance with HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) ensures that APIs handling healthcare data meet the necessary privacy and security standards. HIPAA sets guidelines for the protection of patient health information, making it essential for any API handling healthcare data to be compliant with these regulations to safeguard patient data.
In OAuth 2.0, the ________ endpoint is used by the client to obtain an access token by presenting its authorization grant or refresh token.
- Authentication
- Authorization
- Resource
- Token
In OAuth 2.0, the "Authorization" endpoint is used by the client to obtain an access token by presenting its authorization grant or refresh token. This step is a part of the OAuth authorization code flow, where the client requests the authorization server for an access token.
API key rotation is a practice where API keys are periodically _____ to enhance security.
- encrypted
- invalidated
- regenerated
- shared
API key rotation is a practice where API keys are periodically regenerated to enhance security. This process involves generating new API keys to replace the old ones, reducing the risk of unauthorized access and misuse of keys. It's a vital security measure to protect APIs.