AZ-500 Microsoft Azure Security Technologies Exam

Configure and Enforce Advanced API Security Policies

Azure API Management acts as a centralized gateway that sits in front of your backend services. It provides a single endpoint for clients, which helps you hide implementation details and simplify security. By using Private Link, you can remove direct public access and ensure all API traffic flows through a secured network boundary. This approach also lets you enforce corporate network rules through virtual network injection and private endpoints.

You can choose from several authentication and authorization methods to protect your APIs. These include:

• Basic authentication for legacy or simple scenarios
• OAuth 2.0 flows such as authorization code and client credentials
• Client certificate authentication for mutual TLS handshakes
• Managed identity integration for seamless Azure service calls

These options allow you to validate JWT tokens, enforce scope checks, and apply fine-grained access controls. You can also require subscription keys at the product level to track usage and manage developer onboarding.

Policy-based threat protection lets you apply advanced security measures at different scopes—global, API, or operation level. You can implement:

• TLS enforcement to require secure transport
• IP restrictions to limit calls to approved networks
• Rate limiting and quotas to prevent abuse
• CORS policies to manage cross-origin requests
• Inbound threat detection to block malicious patterns

The Developer Portal and Products model let you group related APIs and define subscription rules. Products enable you to specify approval workflows, usage limits, and pricing tiers. The portal automatically generates documentation from your API definitions and offers interactive testing for developers. This ensures that only authorized clients can access your APIs under consistent, policy-driven controls.

Conclusion

In this section, you learned how Azure API Management provides a secure gateway for all your APIs. You saw how Private Link can remove direct public exposure and centralize network security policies. This gateway simplifies management by hiding backend details and enforcing corporate network rules.

We explored multiple authentication and authorization mechanisms, including OAuth 2.0 flows, JWT token validation, client certificates, and managed identities. You also learned about using subscription keys at the product level to track and control API usage with fine-grained access checks.

Finally, you reviewed policy-based threat protection features such as TLS enforcement, IP restrictions, rate limiting, quotas, CORS policies, and inbound threat detection. The Developer Portal and Products model streamline API grouping, documentation, and self-service onboarding. Together, these configurations ensure that only trusted clients can access your secured APIs under robust, policy-driven controls.