Shift Left to Safeguard Powerful APIs for GIS and Government Agencies

In today's digital age, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have become indispensable tools for state and local governments. From urban planning to emergency management, GIS applications help streamline operations, improve decision making, and enhance public services.

The driving force behind these powerful GIS solutions? Application programming interfaces, or APIs. They are revolutionizing how agencies manage, share, and analyze geographic data, leading to more efficient and effective governance.

APIs act as bridges that connect different software applications, enabling them to communicate and share data seamlessly. For state and local governments, this means that various departments can integrate GIS capabilities into their existing workflows without the need for complex and expensive software overhauls. It also means that the use of APIs has grown significantly.

The increasing reliance on APIs has not gone unnoticed by cybercriminals. Recognizing the critical role that APIs play, attackers are constantly targeting them, aiming to exploit, abuse, and compromise them to gain access to systems and exfiltrate critical data. Compounding the issue is that many local agencies, including counties, lack the necessary expertise to even identify which APIs are being sabotaged to access their systems.

The above scenario poses serious risks, including large-scale data breaches, compliance issues, and hefty regulatory fines. But state and local agencies are highly motivated to take on the added risk of leveraging GIS systems and their vast API networks, simply because of the enhanced efficiency and productivity, greater data sharing and collaboration, cost savings, and significantly improved analytical capabilities that APIs bring.

In this article, we explore the transformative benefits of shifting left for state and local government agencies and why it represents the next big moment in their API security journey.

Through early discovery directly from the codebase, comprehensive understanding, and preemptive documentation, agencies can fortify their defenses, close critical gaps in visibility, improve controls, satisfy compliance and regulators, and set a new standard for API security in an industry where the stakes are extremely high.