API Endpoints

The API Endpoints explorer monitors your API traffic to provide visibility into the security posture of your APIs, including:

• Authentication: Whether the API enforces authentication.
• Authentication Method: Type of authentication used, such as Basic Auth and API key.
• Public Exposure: Whether the API is processing traffic from the internet.
• Sensitive data flows: Sensitive data handled by the API, and the flows between APIs.
• Attack Exposure: If the endpoint is targeted by attacks.
• Business Logic: Business logic and associated business logic suggestions for this API.
• Vulnerabilities: If the endpoint contains a vulnerability (powered by Code Security and Software Composition Analysis).
• Findings: Security findings identified on this API.
• Dependencies: APIs and Databases the API depends on.

Using API Endpoints you can:

• See which endpoints process sensitive data, are authenticated, have vulnerabilities or findings, or are publicly available.
• See which endpoints are at risk, and pivot directly into the Threat Monitoring and Protection service for further investigation or response.
• See which endpoints are associated to your business’s logic, and find business logic suggestions based on your endpoint’s traffic history.

Configuration

To view API Endpoints on your services, you must have App and API Protection Threats Protection enabled.

For Amazon Web Services (AWS) API Gateway integration, you must set up the following:

• Amazon Web Services
• Amazon API Gateway Integration

API Endpoints are discovered from the Datadog Catalog and specifically from API definitions uploaded to Datadog. For instructions on uploading API definitions, see Create Entities.

For information on what library versions are compatible with API Inventory, see Enabling App and API Protection. Remote Configuration is required.

Note: On .NET Core and .NET Fx tracers, you need to set the environment variable DD_API_SECURITY_ENABLED=true for API Security features to work properly.

How it works

API Endpoints gathers security metadata about API traffic by leveraging the Datadog SDK with App and API Protection enabled, alongside configurations from Amazon API Gateway and uploaded API Definitions. This data includes the discovered API schema, the types of sensitive data (PII) processed, and the authentication scheme in use. The API information is continuously evaluated, ensuring a comprehensive and up-to-date view of your entire API attack surface.

API Endpoints uses Remote Configuration to manage and configure scanning rules that detect sensitive data and authentication.

To verify whether discovered endpoints are publicly accessible and require authentication, enable Endpoint Scanning. Endpoint Scanning actively scans eligible endpoints and enriches API Inventory with verified public accessibility, authentication status, HTTP response status, and last evaluation data.

The following risks are calculated for each endpoint.

Data sources

In the API Endpoints explorer, the Data Sources show where visibility originates.

The following data sources are explored.

Amazon API Gateway

The Amazon API Gateway service formally defines your API structure. Datadog AWS integration reads this pre-defined configuration from the Amazon API Gateway, and then Datadog uses this configuration to create API endpoint entries in Inventory.

Use AWS API Gateway in Data Source to gain visibility into these exposed endpoints. You can also use the query datasource:aws_apigateway.

Catalog

The Catalog data source shows API endpoints that Datadog learned about from the formal specification uploaded to Datadog. The API specification is attached to, or registered as, a dedicated API component within the IDP service entity.

This source ensures that your API inventory is complete by including all planned and formally documented endpoints.

APM traces

The Spans data source shows real traffic and data exposure. Remediation should be performed in code, config, or access controls immediately.

What actions you take depend on each of the attack surfaces:

• Vulnerabilities: Patch any vulnerable libraries surfaced by SCA or Runtime Code Analysis, then redeploy the service.
• API findings discovered: Review each issue in context of the traced service, fix any code or configurations, and then validate using new traces.
• Processing sensitive data: Confirm data handling complies with policy, sanitize or encrypt PII, and limit access to necessary services.
• Unauthenticated endpoint: If the endpoint is not intentionally public, enforce authentication and update service configurations.

Static Endpoint Discovery

The Source Code data source shows API endpoints discovered directly from your source code. This complements runtime-based discovery by surfacing endpoints earlier in the development life cycle, including endpoints that may not receive live traffic.

To use this data source, configure the Source Code Integration with GitHub, GitLab, or Azure DevOps. The following languages and frameworks are supported:

To filter for source code endpoints, use Source Code in the Data Source facet or the query datasource:source_code. Scans run when code is pushed to the default branch and on an 8-hour recurring schedule. Discovered endpoints are removed after 12 hours if they are not re-discovered by a subsequent scan.

Map source code endpoints to services

Static Endpoint Discovery uses heuristics to infer which service an endpoint belongs to. For more accurate mapping, explicitly define service-to-code relationships using the codeLocations field in your Catalog service definition (v3 schema):

apiVersion:v3kind:servicemetadata:name:my-serviceowner:my-teamdatadog:codeLocations:- repositoryURL:https://github.com/org/myrepo.gitpaths:- path/to/service/code/**

Without explicit codeLocations, endpoints may not merge correctly with data from other sources.

Processing sensitive data

App and API Protection detects and classifies sensitive data processed by your endpoints, tagging each endpoint with the category and type of data found. To see which endpoints process sensitive data and to create custom API data scanners, see Sensitive Data.

Business logic

These tags (users.login.success, users.login.failure, etc.) are determined by the presence of business logic traces associated with the endpoint.

Publicly accessible

Datadog marks an endpoint as public if the client IP address is outside these ranges:

• 10.0.0.0/8
• 172.16.0.0/12
• 192.168.0.0/16
• 169.254.1.0/16

See Configuring a client IP header for more information on the required library configuration.

Endpoint authentication

Authentication is determined by:

• The presence of Authorization, Token or X-Api-Key headers.
• The presence of a user ID within the trace (for example, the @usr.id APM attribute).
• The request has responded with a 401 or 403 status code.
• Custom Endpoint Tagging rules that you configured

When the type of authentication is available, Datadog reports it in a header through the Authentication Method facet.

Supported authentication methods

Custom authentication support

Custom authentication detection is possible by configuring Endpoint Tagging Rules. These rules require the following minimum tracer versions:

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