Akamai's SOTI Security report details how agentic AI is reshaping the threat landscape for commerce, with a 19% YoY increase in AI bot traffic and over 200 billion application/API attacks between 2024 and 2025. Attackers are exploiting consumer-facing chatbots through logic manipulation, back-end AI agents via prompt injection, and public AI endpoints for token freeloading. The retail vertical bore the brunt of Layer 7 DDoS activity (84%), with hacktivist groups like 313 Team leveraging Mirai-derived IoT botnets and browser impersonation for multi-vector attacks.
API Security
5 posts
Smash and Grab at Scale: Agentic AI Is Reshaping the Threat to Commerce This Is a Hold-Up: Financial Services Under Attack Financial services are facing an escalating threat landscape characterized by massive DDoS attacks, AI-empowered botnets, and targeted web attacks against API endpoints. Attackers are increasingly exploiting overlooked DNS misconfigurations and leveraging hyperscale IoT botnets to bypass traditional IP reputation defenses, necessitating a shift toward behavioral heuristics and adaptive security architectures.
The Other Side of the MCP Threat Conversation Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers introduce a new attack surface akin to AI-native APIs, exposing organizations to protocol-level attacks, injection vulnerabilities, and authorization bypasses. Because MCP tools often use permissive validation to accommodate LLM inputs and proactively broadcast their capabilities via plain-English descriptions, attackers can easily map business logic and exploit downstream systems or trigger resource exhaustion.
The API Weak Spot: Study Shows AI Is Compounding Security Pressures A recent Akamai study reveals that API security incidents are escalating, exacerbated by the rapid adoption of AI technologies like LLMs. Organizations are struggling with API visibility and governance, leading to increased susceptibility to BOLA attacks, business logic abuse, and prompt injection, which bypass traditional WAFs and result in significant financial losses.
Apps, APIs, and DDoS 2026: The Industrialization of Cyberattack Campaigns The Akamai 2026 SOTI report highlights the industrialization of cyberattacks, driven by automation and the convergence of API threats, web exploits, and DDoS campaigns. Key trends include a massive 104% surge in Layer 7 DDoS attacks powered by super botnets, increased risks from untested AI-generated code, and a 73% rise in web application attacks.