An Application Programming Interface (API) is a component that enables communication between two different applications. They can be applications developed on different platforms and it uses a different server for the database. The API Security apps are used to get access data that enables working of multiple apps or services together and it also hides the complexity to developers allowing them to save time on figuring out how other platform applications work for the instance. APIs are also used to extend the functionality of the existing applications.
API security testing is essential as it provides the easiest access point for a hacker who wants to gain access to an organization’s systems eventually. The threats to that data need to be identified and eliminated to make the application more secure.
If there are any sort of security threats in the application, it affects the data of that particular application, but if there is a threat in the API, it affects every single application that relies on the API. So, the security issue in API can compromise your entire application as well as the external organization which relies on your API.
Misconfigured APIs or lack of API Security can lead to various types of attacks such as unauthorized access to sensitive data, Denial of service attack, or excessive data exposure. To secure the API, it is necessary to understand all the possible flaws in API which can be found with penetration testing on API.
API Security Penetration testing is a process in cyber-attack simulation against API to ensure that the API security is strong against from threats and secured from potential vulnerabilities such as Man in the Middle Attacks, Insecure endpoints, Lack of Authentication and Denial-of-Service Attack and Exposure of sensitive data such as credit card information, financial information, and business information.
As the risk associated with the insecure API plays a very important role in Secure Application, it has resulted in OWASP’s listed top 10 vulnerabilities of API as a separate project dedicated purely to the API security.
To find out the vulnerabilities in API Security penetration testing, there are various methods including fuzzing API endpoints which can give access to sensitive information which is not allowed to access, also can test for SQL injection by giving special characters which can break queries or can help in enumerating the backend database information, here instead of giving valid data user can give input which can treat as SQL statement that ultimately gets executed on the database.
Users also can test for Client-side vulnerabilities such as XSS with providing JavaScript payloads as input to certain parameters in the request body which can further be used to hijack session information. With API documentation, users can get a complete picture of all the possible endpoints.
Users can also work on how to interact with the APIs. Based on the collected information, users can perform create, edit, view, and delete operations on all possible endpoints of the APIs and check for the unauthorized access to these operations.
Using API it is also possible to get excessive information from endpoints. Usually, the data is filtered on the client-side before being sent to the user. An attacker can easily sniff the traffic and look if he can access or view any sensitive data.
Here at SecureLayer7, we perform all possible approaches to finding vulnerabilities in API, which gives assurance of a safe and secure API to an organization.
There are various attacks possible on API security. Below are a few mitigations to prevent API security risks :
Conclusion:
API security is a critical aspect concerning the security of your organization’s sensitive data such as business-critical information, Payment details, Personal information, etc. Securelayer7 provides the solution with an advanced approach of API Security penetration testing and also provides the best mitigations for the problems on reliable API which will help you to avoid consequences that can occur due to compromised API.