Securing APIs with JSON Web Tokens and Rate Limiting

Introduction: That One API Endpoint That Broke My Soul

You ever open your logs and just… stare?

You squint. You scroll. Then you say,

"Who the heck is hitting my /login endpoint 4,238 times?"

That was me last year.

Sitting at my desk, late at night, trying to figure out why my perfectly innocent API was being treated like an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Every second, new requests. Mostly garbage. Some malicious. A few weirdly creative.

My API wasn’t just popular—it was under siege.

Enter my two new best friends: JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) and Rate Limiting.

Let’s walk through this journey. Buckle up.

I’ll bring the coffee, you bring the attention span.

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A Little History: When APIs Were Naive and the Web Was Young

Back in the pre-token, pre-everyone-and-their-dog-has-an-API days, we authenticated users using sessions.

You’d log in, and the server would store a session on its end. Cute.

But this didn’t scale. Especially when your app suddenly needed to serve a zillion devices, from phones to smart fridges.

Then came JWTs. Compact, stateless, self-contained tokens that could be used anywhere.

Think of it like giving someone a verified, tamper-proof badge instead of having to call security every time.

As for rate limiting—once you make an API public, the internet will try to break it.

That’s not a bug. That’s the internet being the internet.

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How JWTs and Rate Limiting Saved Me (Literally)

Before I implemented these, my API was like an unlocked vending machine.

Push hard enough? Free soda for everyone.

I had:

• Bots brute-forcing logins
• Users sending 1,000 requests for fun (WHY THO?)
• DDoS-style spikes from unknown sources

Afterwards:

• Only valid users could access data
• Login abuse? Blocked.
• CPU/memory usage? Smooth as butter

One guy even emailed me saying,

“Why is your API so annoying now?”

I cried a little. Tears of joy.

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A Quick History Lesson: From Cookies to Tokens (and Back Again?)

In the golden days of Web 1.0, we loved sessions and cookies.

You’d log in, the server would remember you. This worked… until you had 300,000 users and your server melted.

Then came JSON Web Tokens (JWTs)—lightweight, stateless, and perfect for the modern, microservice-loving, single-page-app-fueled internet.

Paired with rate limiting, which acts like a bouncer at your API’s door, we finally had a way to protect our backend babies.

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Scope: Who Should Be Doing This?

Basically, if your API talks to the internet, you need both JWTs and rate limiting.

• SaaS devs
• Mobile API providers
• Public data services
• Internal APIs (yes, internal stuff can get hacked too!)

Even your mom’s recipe-sharing backend could be a target.

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Tips, Gotchas, and Things I Learned the Hard Way

• Rate limit at the CDN level too if possible (Cloudflare, Fastly, etc.)
• Don’t put sensitive data in JWTs—they're Base64 encoded, not encrypted.
• Don’t use the same token secret across environments.
• Don’t forget: Every auth system is only as strong as the weakest config file.

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Final Thoughts: You’re Not Paranoid, You’re Prepared

Securing an API is like locking your bike in a sketchy neighborhood.

Is it annoying? Yeah. But it beats walking home holding your handlebars.

• JWTs give you solid, scalable auth.
• Rate limiting keeps the chaos in check.
• Together? You’ve got a backend fortress.

So go ahead:

• Add that middleware.
• Bump your test coverage.
• Kick those bots to the curb.

And next time someone says,

“Wow, your API is kind of a pain to mess with,”

just smile.

You did that on purpose.

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