API Security Testing

API Security Assessment Areas

Authentication & Authorization

Testing JWT tokens, OAuth 2.0, API keys, and role-based access controls to prevent unauthorized access and privilege escalation.

Data Validation & Injection

Comprehensive testing for SQL injection, NoSQL injection, command injection, and input validation bypasses across all API parameters.

Rate Limiting & DoS Protection

Assessment of rate limiting mechanisms, resource consumption limits, and denial-of-service attack resistance.

Business Logic & Workflow

Testing API business logic, transaction flows, state management, and workflow bypasses that could lead to unauthorized operations.

Information Disclosure

Identifying sensitive data exposure, verbose error messages, and information leakage through API responses and headers.

API Configuration Security

Assessment of CORS policies, security headers, versioning strategies, and API gateway configurations for security misconfigurations.

API Technologies We Test

REST APIs

Testing Focus:

HTTP method manipulation
Parameter pollution attacks
JSON/XML injection testing
Resource access control
HTTP verb tampering
Content-type confusion

Common Vulnerabilities:

BOLA Mass Assignment BFLA

GraphQL APIs

Testing Focus:

Query depth limiting bypass
Introspection exploitation
Field suggestion attacks
Mutation testing
Schema poisoning
Subscription abuse

GraphQL-Specific:

Query Complexity DoS via Queries Schema Leaks

SOAP APIs

Testing Focus:

WSDL enumeration and analysis
XML injection attacks
SOAP header manipulation
WS-Security bypass
XML entity expansion
SOAPAction spoofing

SOAP-Specific:

XXE XML Bombs WSDL Parsing

API Testing Methodology

API Discovery & Documentation Analysis

Comprehensive API endpoint discovery and documentation review to understand the complete attack surface.

Swagger/OpenAPI specification analysis
Endpoint enumeration and discovery
API versioning assessment
Parameter and schema analysis

Authentication & Authorization Testing

Thorough evaluation of API authentication mechanisms and access control implementations.

JWT token security analysis
OAuth 2.0 flow testing
API key security assessment
Role-based access control bypass

Input Validation & Injection Testing

Comprehensive testing of all API inputs for injection vulnerabilities and validation bypasses.

SQL/NoSQL injection testing
Command injection assessment
XML/JSON injection attacks
Parameter pollution testing

Business Logic & Rate Limiting

Assessment of API business logic implementation and protective mechanisms against abuse.

Business workflow bypass testing
Rate limiting effectiveness
Resource exhaustion attacks
API abuse scenario testing

Data Security & Compliance

Evaluation of data handling, encryption, and compliance with privacy regulations.

Sensitive data exposure analysis
Encryption in transit/at rest
GDPR/CCPA compliance review
PCI DSS compliance (if applicable)

API Testing Tools & Frameworks

Postman

API development and testing platform

Burp Suite

Advanced API security testing

Custom Python Scripts

Automated API testing frameworks

GraphQL Voyager

GraphQL schema exploration

FFuF

Fast web fuzzer for endpoint discovery

JWT.io

JWT token analysis and manipulation

Insomnia

REST and GraphQL client testing

SQLMap

Automated SQL injection for APIs

API Security Assessment Deliverables

API Security Report

Comprehensive security assessment report covering all tested endpoints with vulnerability details and risk ratings.

Endpoint-by-endpoint analysis
OWASP API Top 10 mapping
Business impact assessment

API Security Hardening Guide

Detailed recommendations for securing API implementations with code examples and configuration best practices.

Authentication implementation fixes
Rate limiting configuration
Input validation patterns

Postman Test Collection

Ready-to-use Postman collection with security test cases for ongoing validation and regression testing.

Automated security test suite
Environment configuration
CI/CD integration ready

Developer Training Session

Optional training session for development teams on secure API development practices and common pitfalls.

Secure coding best practices
Vulnerability demonstration
Q&A session with developers