API Gateways as Zero-Trust Enforcers
API Gateways transition from traffic routers to identity verification engines in zero-trust architectures.
Zero-Trust Principles
Authenticate every request, verify against policy, enforce least privilege, generate audit trails.
Mutual TLS (mTLS)
Both parties present valid certificates. Requires automated rotation, revocation, and renewal.
Identity Verification
JWT claims encode identity: subject, issuer, audience, scope, timestamp, risk level.
Context-Aware Authorization
Consider: time windows, geography, behavioral baselines, device posture, network context.
DevSecOps Integration
Security policies as version-controlled IaC:
- Terraform configuration
- JWT authorizer setup
- WAF integration
- Certificate automation
Monitoring
Behavioral analytics and ML anomaly detection identify threats.
TL;DR
- Zero-trust gateways enforce cryptographic verification at every request
- mTLS requires automated certificate lifecycle
- JWT with fine-grained scopes and verification
- ABAC enables context-aware policy
- DevSecOps with IaC and testing
- ML detects threats beyond rules
- Phased: single service to multi-service