Unlocking the Value of API Logs with API Insights

Published: February 6, 2025

APIs: More Important Than Ever

APIs are the foundation of modern digital infrastructure, seamlessly connecting applications, systems, and users. From customer transactions and cloud services to internal automation and third-party integrations, APIs enable businesses to easily scale their operations and innovate rapidly. As APIs grow in complexity and usage, they also introduce significant security, operational, and compliance risks, many of which organizations fail to track effectively.

API Risks Are at an All-Time High

Most companies collect some form of API logs but aren’t able to extract meaningful intelligence from them. Critical transactions go unmonitored, anomalous behaviour slips through undetected, and operational inefficiencies quietly drive up costs. This lack of visibility leaves businesses vulnerable to external and internal attacks and misuse.

API compromises are on the rise, and the costs of those compromises are increasing too. According to a recent IBM survey, The global average cost of a data breach in 2024 was $4.88 million, a 10% increase over the previous year and the highest total ever. In this same year, notable attacks occurred at Dell, Trello, and Cox Communications. No company is too big or too small to be vulnerable.

Bridging the Visibility Gap with API Insights for Splunk

Solsys API Insights for Splunk changes the way organizations monitor and secure their API ecosystems. API Insights transforms raw API logs into actionable intelligence helping security teams detect threats in real time, improving your security and posture and exposure. API Insights also enables IT teams to optimize performance, ensuring compliance teams can track and audit API activity effortlessly and greatly increases operational efficiency.

API Insights for Splunk goes beyond traditional API monitoring tools by correlating API activity with broader security events, operational patterns, and business outcomes. Instead of sifting through massive volumes of raw logs, teams get clear dashboards, proactive alerts, and powerful analytics to identify risks, optimize performance, and strengthen their security postures.

APIs expose critical business functions to users, partners, and applications but without deep visibility into API transactions, organizations face challenges such as:

• Undetected API Misuse and Attacks – APIs are frequent targets for cybercriminals, and even authenticated users can abuse them. Without comprehensive monitoring, excessive sensitive data access and unauthorized operations can go unnoticed until it’s too late.
• Operational Inefficiencies and Rising Costs – Poorly managed APIs can degrade performance and lead to excessive infrastructure costs. Identifying inefficient API calls, misuse of resources, and bottlenecks is crucial for maintaining service reliability.
• Difficulty in Providing Compliance and Governance Information – Without structured API visibility, organizations struggle to enforce access policies, track transactions, and meet regulatory requirements such as GDPR, HIPAA, or PCI-DSS. Failure to properly log and monitor API interactions can result in fines, data breaches, and loss of customer trust. When a compromise occurs, a lack of an API transaction record makes quantifying an attack impossible, increasing the cost of any size of exposure.

How API Insights for Splunk Delivers Business Value

API Insights for Splunk is designed to reduce risk, lower costs, and optimize API operations giving organizations the confidence to scale their API ecosystems securely. API Insights leverages the power of Splunk and big data reporting to provide real business value:

• Proactive Threat Detection – API Insights continuously analyzes API activity, identifying patterns of misuse, detecting suspicious behaviour, and alerting security teams before risks escalate.
• Complete API Visibility – By consolidating API activity across multiple services, platforms, and gateways, API Insights provides a centralized view of API security, performance, and compliance.
• Optimized API Performance and Cost Efficiency – By detecting inefficient API usage, redundant calls, and excessive resource consumption, API Insights helps streamline operations and reduce unnecessary expenses.
• Zero Trust Enforcement – API Insights ensures that only authorized users and applications can access APIs, preventing lateral movement and reducing attack surfaces.
• Automated Compliance and Auditing – With pre-built dashboards and structured logging, API Insights makes regulatory reporting effortless helping organizations maintain compliance and pass audits with confidence.

A Smarter Approach to API Security & Monitoring

API Insights for Splunk isn’t just another monitoring tool, it’s a strategic advantage for organizations that rely on APIs to power their business. By leveraging our API common information model (CIM), API Insights seamlessly integrates with existing Splunk environments, making API security and performance monitoring an intuitive part of your existing security and operations workflow.

With over 72 security use cases identified, API Insights transforms how businesses approach API security and monitoring from reactive incident response to proactive risk mitigation.

APIs are your most valuable digital assets but they can also be your greatest vulnerability. Don’t wait for an incident to expose the risks in your API ecosystem and don’t be in the dark if you do get attacked. With API Insights, you can detect threats before they happen, reduce costs before they spiral, and take control of your APIs before it’s too late.

Marek Suchomski is a Technical Account Manager at Solsys, where he has been dedicated to helping clients leverage Splunk deployments for over three years. With a strong development background, Marek brings a deep understanding of both the technical and business aspects of the industry. As both a manager and a Splunk-certified Admin, Marek is committed to assisting his colleagues in navigating the evolving landscape of cybersecurity.