API Policy Enforcement via Intermediary Device for Microservices
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current systems lack proactive monitoring and granular control mechanisms for microservices and APIs, leading to reactive security incident diagnosis and inefficient access management.
Innovation Solution
A system and method that utilize a device intermediary to microservices to apply security policies, allowing or denying API access based on various criteria, generating and displaying service graphs to visualize and manage microservices and their interactions, and implementing policy manager to enforce API access control.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a device intermediary applies granular security policies to API access control, then security monitoring capability and access control precision are improved, but device complexity and system overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a device intermediary positioned between microservices and APIs that acts as a policy enforcement point. This intermediary device monitors API access requests, evaluates them against defined security policies, and controls access accordingly. By placing this intermediary layer, the system achieves granular security control without modifying the microservices themselves, thus improving security monitoring capability while managing complexity through a dedicated security management component.
Solution Approach 2:
The security policy enforcement is segmented into discrete policy rules that can be independently defined, evaluated, and managed. Each policy rule addresses specific access control requirements for different APIs, microservices, or user roles. This segmentation allows the system to apply granular control at the API level without requiring comprehensive system-wide changes, thereby improving security precision while keeping individual policy components manageable and reducing overall system overhead.
2Device complexity
If reactive security incident diagnosis is used, then system simplicity is maintained, but security response time and incident resolution efficiency deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements preliminary security monitoring and policy evaluation before security incidents occur. The device intermediary continuously monitors API access patterns, evaluates requests against security policies in advance, and can prevent potential security incidents before they manifest. This proactive approach transforms security from a reactive post-incident analysis function to a preventive mechanism, significantly reducing security response time while maintaining manageable system complexity through automated policy enforcement.
Solution Approach 2:
The system incorporates continuous feedback loops where the device intermediary monitors API access, evaluates policies, and adjusts security enforcement in real-time. Security events and access patterns are tracked and fed back into the policy evaluation mechanism, enabling dynamic security adjustments. This feedback-driven approach improves security response time by detecting and responding to potential threats as they emerge, rather than waiting for reactive incident diagnosis.
Data Source
AI summary
The implementations described herein provide a tool for identifying security issues and applying security policies to the service(s) and/or microservices. Rather than a user (such as an administrator) reactively diagnosing security incidents, the systems and methods described herein may provide a tool by which the user can proactively monitor the use of the services and microservices for security issues and control the user of such microservices and services via policies. The systems and methods allow API granular policy control to determine which APIs may be granted or denies access based on a variety of criteria, such as but not limited to the source of the request, the specific API being called, temporal conditions, geography and so forth. The user can identify security concerns or issues on a per API basis.