What is API Security Testing?
API Penetration Testing is the primary assessment used to identify and address vulnerabilities in Web services that could be exploited by hackers for malicious purposes, using the same tools and techniques. Our API penetration testing services simulate a real cyberattacking targeting your Web services and offer an accurate representation of your API security by presenting several real-world opportunities for hackers to circumvent your security measures and launch additional attacks.
Why Conduct a Pentest of Your API?
Conducting security testing of your API provides invaluable insights into the potential threats that may compromise the cybersecurity of your endpoints and its users. Here is what you will get after conducting a project with our team:
Validate your existing security controls
Our tests will test the effectiveness of your app’s existing security controls in preventing and detecting attacks. By simulating an attacker, our experts will identify gaps in your defenses and provide remediation measures to improve your ability to prevent cyberattacks.
Understand the potential impact of an attack on your API / Web Services
Our tests will identify and measure vulnerabilities that could be exploited to gain unauthorized access to sensitive data, administrative features, or damage your reputation. By understanding exactly what could happen during an attack, organizations can prioritize their security efforts and allocate resources effectively.
Identify & fix all existing vulnerabilities
Our team will help you identify all existing vulnerabilities in your API endpoints and its underlying hosting infrastructure. The test will result in prioritized remediation steps to help reduce your overall risk exposure.
Improve your API's security
Our services will provide detailed information on how an attacker can breach your API, what data or critical systems they could target and how to protect them. With this information, our team will provide you with tailored recommendations to improve your API’s security posture and protect it against potential threats.
Comply with regulatory requirements
Many regulatory frameworks require API penetration testing as part of their compliance requirements. Our tests will help your organization meet these requirements effortlessly, by providing an official attestation that your risks have been successfully mitigated following remediation testing.
Enhance your development practices
Gain a deeper understanding of development processes that might inadvertently introduce security risks, allowing you to develop more secure APIs in the future.
When Should You Perform an API Penetration Test?
- Annually as part of a proactive security strategy
- Before launching new APIs or major updates
- After significant infrastructure or code changes
- Prior to a compliance audit or assessment
- Following a security breach or incident
- In response to newly discovered vulnerability or threats
- Prior to an M&A transaction or other major business event
Our API Security Testing Methodology

Security Assessment
Our experts validate that your API meets various security requirements. For instance, authorization parameters and data access conditions are assessed to determine how the API handles permissions.

Penetration Testing
We attempt to breach your API by circumventing user privileges and bypassing authentication functions to identify technical vulnerabilities that allow hackers to further infiltrate your systems.

Fuzzing
Using various attack methods commonly deployed by hackers, we manipulate API requests and parameters to identify vulnerabilities that can be exploited to compromise your security.
Improve Your API Security
Parameter tampering
Fuzz testing
Endpoint authorisation
XSS Attack
Command injection
Endpoint authentication
CSRF attack
Man-in-the-middle attack
DID YOU KNOW?
“ By 2022, API abuses will be the most-frequent attack vector ”
-Gartner Research
Need Help To Assess And Improve Your Cybersecurity?
OWASP Top 10 API Vulnerabilities
Our API Penetration Testing combines both automatic and in-depth manual testing techniques. We use OWASP’s API security standard as a baseline for our testing methodology in order to identify vulnerabilities unique to each API.
- Broken Object Level Authorization
- Broken Function Level Authorization
- Broken User Authentication
- Excessive Data Exposure
- Mass Assignment
- Security Misconfiguration
- Injection
- Improper Assets Management
- Insufficient Logging & Monitoring
- Lack of Resources & Rate Limiting
Frequently Asked Questions
Couldn’t find the information you were looking for? Ask an expert directly.
API penetration testing is designed to identify and address security vulnerabilities within an organization’s API endpoints. It helps ensure the security and compliance of APIs, protecting sensitive data, and preventing potential cyberattacks.
API penetration testing follows a systematic process that includes scoping and planning, information gathering, threat modeling, vulnerability assessment, reporting and remediation, and re-testing and validation. This comprehensive approach helps identify and address vulnerabilities, by simulating real-world cyberattacks on API endpoints, ensuring the API’s security is enhanced based on the identified risks and potential attack vectors.
To begin an API penetration test, organizations must provide details about the API endpoints (usually with an API definition file), access credentials when required, and any specific testing requirements or restrictions. A scoping discussion is always planned with your team to establish the scope and objectives prior to the test.
API security testing is usually performed in a controlled manner to minimize the risk of any disruption and the overwhelming majority of our clients cannot tell any testing is being performed. In any case, the testing team will discuss with your team in a pre-launch call to ensure they understand any potential operational impacts and can conduct tests accordingly.
In most cases, no access or permissions are required, as the goal is to replicate an authentic cyber threat attempting to compromise your API. However, in some contexts, and depending on your objectives, some level of access may be required in order for the test to be conducted effectively. This may include API keys, authentication credentials, and documentation about the API’s functionality. Any access requirements will be discussed with your team prior to the launch to determine if it is required to achieve the desired outcome.
API security testing is a critical step of an organization’s development lifecycle. It helps identify and remediate vulnerabilities in APIs, enhances the security posture, and ensures compliance with industry regulations.
Our testing process is designed to adapt to different API technologies and architectures, ensuring a comprehensive assessment of your API’s security.
- RESTful APIs: The most common API architecture that uses HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE) and follows standard conventions for resource access.
- SOAP APIs: XML-based APIs that use a predefined contract (WSDL) to define the structure and semantics of requests and responses.
- GraphQL APIs: A query language and runtime for APIs that enables more flexible data retrieval and manipulation.
- JSON-RPC and XML-RPC: Remote procedure call (RPC) APIs that use JSON or XML, respectively, for encoding the request and response data.
- gRPC APIs: High-performance APIs built on the Protocol Buffers serialization format and the HTTP/2 protocol.
- Custom APIs: APIs that follow proprietary protocols or conventions specific to a particular application or organization.