rate-limiting▌

Implements security controls at the API gateway layer including authentication enforcement, rate limiting, request validation, IP allowlisting, TLS termination, and threat protection. The engineer configures API gateways (Kong, AWS API Gateway, Azure APIM, Apigee) to act as a centralized security enforcement point that validates, throttles, and monitors all API traffic before it reaches backend services. Activates for requests involving API gateway security, API management security, gateway authentication, or centralized API protection.

Implement API abuse detection using token bucket, sliding window, and adaptive rate limiting algorithms to prevent DDoS, brute force, and credential stuffing attacks.

Detect and prevent API enumeration attacks including BOLA and IDOR exploitation by monitoring sequential identifier access patterns and authorization failures.

Configure Cloudflare DDoS protection with managed rulesets, rate limiting, WAF rules, Bot Management, and origin protection to mitigate volumetric, protocol, and application-layer attacks.

Tests API rate limiting implementations for bypass vulnerabilities by manipulating request headers, IP addresses, HTTP methods, API versions, and encoding schemes to circumvent request throttling controls. The tester identifies rate limit headers, determines enforcement mechanisms, and attempts bypasses including X-Forwarded-For spoofing, parameter pollution, case variation, and endpoint path manipulation. Maps to OWASP API4:2023 Unrestricted Resource Consumption. Activates for requests involving rate limit bypass, API throttling evasion, brute force protection testing, or API abuse prevention assessment.

Implements API rate limiting and throttling controls using token bucket, sliding window, and fixed window algorithms to protect against brute force attacks, credential stuffing, resource exhaustion, and API abuse. The engineer configures per-user, per-IP, and per-endpoint rate limits using Redis-backed counters, API gateway plugins, or application middleware, and implements proper HTTP 429 responses with Retry-After headers. Activates for requests involving rate limiting implementation, API throttling setup, request quota management, or API abuse prevention.

Securing API Gateway endpoints with AWS WAF by configuring managed rule groups for OWASP Top 10 protection, creating custom rate limiting rules, implementing bot control, setting up IP reputation filtering, and monitoring WAF metrics for security effectiveness.

This skill covers deploying and tuning Web Application Firewall rules on AWS WAF, Azure WAF, and Cloudflare to protect cloud-hosted applications against OWASP Top 10 attacks. It details configuring managed rule sets, creating custom rules for business logic protection, implementing rate limiting, deploying bot management, and reducing false positives through rule tuning and logging analysis.