Five Cryptographic Mistakes Developers Must Stop Making in Modern APIs

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Security firm CryptoAgile Labs has outlined common cryptographic anti-patterns that introduce vulnerabilities into production API systems. Key mistakes include treating Base64 encoding as encryption, reusing nonces in authenticated encryption schemes like AES-GCM, and hardcoding secrets directly into source code or version control repositories. Developers are also warned against relying on outdated algorithms such as MD5, SHA-1, DES, or AES-ECB, which are susceptible to collision attacks and pattern leakage. Using non-cryptographic pseudo-random number generators for security-sensitive operations rounds out the list of critical errors. The guidance recommends modern alternatives including AES-GCM encryption, cryptographically secure random number generators, and dedicated secrets management tools like HashiCorp Vault or AWS Secrets Manager.

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