API
termprogrammingweb dev
Stands for: Application Programming Interface
A defined way for one program to ask another for something - a contract about what may be called and what comes back.
The interface is a promise, and the promise is the security surface: everything the caller can reach is everything an attacker who obtains a credential can reach. Two failures dominate. Authorisation checked at the gateway but not per object, so changing an identifier in a request returns somebody else's record. And an interface that grew by addition, where the undocumented endpoint from three years ago is still answering because nothing ever removes anything.
Also known as: Application Programming Interface