What is the 2025 State of the API Report From Postman?
Summary:
Timothy De Block is joined by Sam Chehab to unpack the key findings of the 2025 Postman State of the API Report. Sam emphasizes that APIs are the connective tissue of the modern world and that the biggest security challenges are rooted in fundamentals. The conversation dives deep into how AI agents are transforming API development and consumption, introducing new threats like "rug pulls" , and demanding higher quality documentation and error messages. Sam also shares actionable advice for engineers, including a "cheat code" for getting organizational buy-in for AI tools and a detailed breakdown of the new Model Context Protocol (MCP).
Key Insights from the State of the API Report
API Fundamentals are Still the Problem: The start of every security journey is an inventory problem (the first two CIS controls). Security success is a byproduct of solving collaboration problems for developers first.
The Collaboration Crisis: 93% of teams are struggling with API collaboration, leading to duplicated work and an ever-widening attack surface due to decentralized documentation (Slack, Confluence, etc.).
API Documentation is Up: A positive sign of progress is that 58% of teams surveyed are actively documenting their APIs to improve collaboration.
Unauthorized Access Risk: 51% of developers cite unauthorized agent access as a top security risk. Sam suspects this is predominantly due to the industry-wide "hot mess" of secrets management and leaked API keys.
Credential Amplification: This term is used to describe how risk is exponential, not linear, when one credential gains access to a service that, in turn, has access to multiple other services (i.e., lateral movement).
AI, MCP, and New Security Challenges
Model Context Protocol (MCP): MCP is a protocol layer that sits on top of existing RESTful services, allowing users to generically interact with APIs using natural language. It acts as an abstraction layer, translating natural language requests into the proper API calls.
The AI API Readiness Checklist: For APIs to be effective for AI agents:
Rich Documentation: AI thrives on documentation, which developers generally hate writing. Using AI to write documentation is key.
Rich Errors: APIs need contextual error messages (e.g., "invalid parameter, expected X, received Y") instead of generic messages like "something broke".
AI Introduces Supply Chain Threats: The "rug pull" threat involves blindly trusting an MCP server that is then swapped out for a malicious one. This is a classic supply chain problem (similar to NPM issues) that can happen much faster in the AI world.
MCP Supply Chain Risk: Because you can use other people's MCP servers, developers must validate which MCP servers they're using to avoid running untrusted code. The first reported MCP hack involved a server that silently BCC'd an email to the attacker every time an action was performed.
Actionable Advice and Engineer "Cheat Codes"
Security Shift-Left with Postman: Security teams should support engineering's use of tools like Postman because it allows developers to run security tests (load testing, denial of service simulation, black box testing) themselves within their normal workflow, accelerating development velocity.
API Key Management is Critical: Organizations need policies around API key generation, expiration, and revocation. Postman actively scans public repos (like GitHub) for leaked Postman keys, auto-revokes them, and notifies the administrator.
Getting AI Buy-in (The Cheat Code): To get an AI tool (like a Postman agent or a code generator) approved within your organization, use this tactic:
Generate a DPA (Data Processing Agreement) using an AI tool.
Present the DPA and a request for an Enterprise License to Legal, Security, and your manager.
This demonstrates due diligence and opens the door for safe, approved AI use, making you an engineering "hero".
About Postman and the Report
Postman's Reach: Postman is considered the de facto standard for API development and is used in 98% of the Fortune 500.
Report Origins: The annual report, now in its seventh year, was started because no one else was effectively collecting and synthesizing data across executives, managers, developers, and consultants regarding API production and consumption.
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