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API security

API Penetration Testing Methodology

OWASP API Security Top 10 (2023) testing — spec-driven where a spec exists, and crawler-driven where it does not, so undocumented and shadow endpoints are tested too. Cross-user authorization (BOLA/BFLA) is tested with real authenticated identities.

Phase 1

Spec Ingestion & Discovery

Know the contract

Parse a linked OpenAPI/Swagger/GraphQL/Postman spec, and probe well-known spec locations when none is provided.

OpenAPI / Swagger parser
GraphQL introspection
Well-known spec probing
Phase 2

Endpoint Enumeration

Find every endpoint

Augment the spec with endpoints observed from the crawler — static JS routes plus live XHR/fetch from a headless browser — to catch undocumented routes.

Static endpoint crawler
Headless (Puppeteer) crawler
Live XHR/fetch capture
Phase 3

OWASP API Top 10 Analysis

Test the controls

Test object- and function-level authorization (BOLA/BFLA), mass assignment, excessive data exposure, injection, SSRF, rate limiting, and auth.

BOLA / BFLA (multi-user)
Mass assignment + property-level authz
Injection / SSRF
JWT / OAuth / auth-bypass
Phase 4

Exploitation & Validation

Prove the impact

Confirm exploitable authorization and injection flaws with real test-user sessions, deduplicated and verified to remove false positives.

Authenticated cross-user probes
sqlmap
Inventory / version checks
Phase 5

Reporting

Make it actionable

Findings mapped to the OWASP API Top 10 with endpoint, parameter, and remediation detail.

OWASP API Top 10 mapping
Risk-scored findings
PDF / web / DOCX reports

Standards we map to

Every finding is tagged against the frameworks your compliance team actually uses.

OWASP API Security Top 10 (2023)
OWASP Top 10
NIST SP 800-115

A note on authorization

Every active test requires either attested ownership of the target during signup or an explicit written authorization on file. We log every test request against this authorization so there's never any ambiguity about scope — we are bound by the same Computer Misuse legislation our customers are.

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