Access logs capture important details about incoming requests and outgoing responses, such as request patterns, source IP addresses, request headers, and status codes. Without access logging, the following risks are posed:
An attacker attempts a brute-force attack against an API endpoint by making multiple unauthorized requests to guess valid API keys or credentials. Without access logging, there's no record of these suspicious request patterns, making it harder to detect and mitigate the attack. If access logging were enabled, the attack would be visible in the logs, enabling the security team to detect the unusual number of failed requests from a particular IP address and block the source before the attack escalates.
