API Security – A Guide for Every Tech Person

API – A well known term in the IT industry. API is used by testers, programmers, developers, leadership teams, and almost everyone who works in an Information Technology company.

But what is API Security? How does it work? Why is it built? Knowing the answers to all these questions is essential, especially if you are stepping into the IT world for the first time.

Do you think that getting a job as an api tester is easy? Well, it is, but only if you have an entire knowledge on api security attacks and what is api security testing.

If you think that you fit in these categories, then you can surely apply for the api security testing role in any organization.

Moving ahead, let us throw some light on what is an API and how to secure APIs:

What is API Security – Application Programming Interface:

Application Programming Interface works as a communication medium between different web applications.

Sometimes, web applications need to communicate with each other to get requested data, but due to security reasons, they cannot fetch it directly.

The main agenda of API security is to prevent websites and web applications from API attacks and to prevent the sensitive data present in the organization’s database.

That’s where API comes into the picture. The architecture of an API is built by the developers in such a way that it allows easy communication between the server and the client.

However, while doing that process, various api security challenges come as an obstacle in the phase, and to help, the api security best practices are followed.

API works as a pillar in the world of api security, and it may have its own weaknesses as well. To work with APIs, there are authentication and authorization available, but sometimes they break very easily, which results in the failure of the development or testing.

Also Read: Important to Secure Websites from Cross Site Request Forgery

What is API Security Testing and What are its Methods?

The process where a software tester evaluates an API, like whether the responses are coming properly or not, is known as API security testing.

The goal of an api tester here is to do a detailed analysis of the API and identify the vulnerable areas of the API through which an attacker can breach the security rules and gain unauthorized access.

To prevent a company from security breaches, there are different types of api security controls and web api security methods available that a tester should follow.

Mentioned Below Are the Top-rated Methods Available to Prevent Data From API Security Attacks

1. Check the command injection:

There are different types of cyber attacks an attacker can do, and one of them is command injection.

To test whether your API is strong enough to prevent the platform from command injection attacks, you can do it by providing random OS commands in the API inputs area and see how the API responds.

If you don’t want to take a risk by inputting a risky operating system command, then you can simply proceed with a reboot command and verify whether the API accepts it or not.

2. Check the Parameter Tampering:

In an API, a client sends a request to the server by inputting a parameter. Based on the requested parameter, the response is generated.

So, in order to do the modification in the parameters, the attacker can manipulate the API and make any kind of changes, and get the user’s data quite effortlessly.

This process of getting unauthorized access is called Parameter Tampering. The other thing that happens in this process is the use of hidden fields in the form.

Once the attacker gets access to hidden fields, they can easily do various kinds of experiments with it to see how the API responds.  

3. Check the Unhandled HTTP Methods:

Any web application that uses APIs to communicate with other web applications has different types of HTTP methods.

With the assistance of these HTTPS methods, the web application’s server stores, deletes, and retrieves data whenever required.

However, if HTTP is not supported by the server, you will get an error in response, but this is a rare case. But this really means that the api and the web application both are vulnerable.

4. Check the Input Fuzzing of APIs:

In the fuzzing process, the attacker gives any data randomly to the API and expects to discover a security problem, which is natural.

If you see that the API is not working properly, generating errors, crashing, or giving weird responses, you should debug it.

Also Read: What is Clickjacking , It’s Types and How to Prevent It?

Most Used Open-Source API Testing Tools available for Application Programming Interface Security:

Now, as you know, what is api in cyber security, we will guide you about the open-source API testing tools. Make sure you keep them in your regular practices to become an API expert.

1. Postman:

Postman is a super easy and effortless API testing and API development platform. It can be used by developers as well as testers.

The key features offered by Postman that make it a suitable open-source platform are as follows:

• You can easily write your manual test scripts and upload them to Postman. It will automate all the manual scripts in a short period of time.

• You can easily integrate your test scripts into the CI/CD pipelines without doing a lot.

• You can identify and do an analysis on how the API is performing, and how much time it is taking to respond.

2. SOAP UI:

In order to automate your test cases, you can use SOAP UI because it consists of a large library that allows you to easily perform the process.

Apart from this, the other features in SOAP UI are as follows:

• You can use the source code and even customize it as per your needs.

• The interface of the SOAP UI is quite easy. To create or run a test case, you just have to do the drag and drop process, and the rest will be done.

• You can reuse the existing test cases.

3. JMETER:

JMeter is basically for performance testing. There are many web applications that multiple users use at one time, and JMeter is used to test how strong the server is at handling the load.

However, JMeter also has some fantastic features, such as below:

• Upload large files in the CSV format with complex data and check the capacity of the API.

• Integrate your API test scenarios and APIs with Jenkins.

• Replay your test results to see the outcome.

4. Fiddler:

For any HTTP request sent to Fiddler, you can reply to it as many times as you want. It allows you to add API extensions for free for different languages such as Java, .NET, and more.

The key features of Fiddler are as follows:

• You can debug any type of request. It does not matter who the client is.

• Test headers, cookies, and cache are directly stored in client and server communication.

• Easy to navigate UI and can be easily understood.

5. Swagger:

Swagger is one of the most popular and easiest API testing platforms that anyone can learn to use very easily.

Swagger is the favorite of every API tester for the following reasons:

• Using Swagger, you can directly create a top-down API.

• If not top-bottom, you can create the bottom-top design as per the requirement.

• Swagger has its own documentation that you can go through for all types of questions.

Frequently Asked Questions About API Security testing in Cyber Security:

1. Does API security OWASP play a part in API testing and API development?

Yes, anything that is developed or tested specifically for OWASP, falls under the web api security. You can read about What is OWASP?

2. What are the top 5 most used api security scanning tools?

You can use Postman, OWASP, Burp Suite, Probely, and 42Crunch to use as an API security scanning tool.

3. Which is the most secure API method?

Using HTTP bearer tokens is considered the most secure method to develop or test the API security.

4. SOAP API or REST API, which is more secure?

The REST API and SOAP API both have their own secure and high level features that you can use. But if you want to secure your API in a stronger manner, then initially you can go with a SOAP API.

5. In which programming languages can I create an Application Programming Interface?

You can create APIs using various programming languages such as Java, .NET, C++, Python, and more.

Conclusion:

It is very necessary to build a trustworthy relationship between a client and the server. Only then and then do web applications work successfully.

In today’s generation, we have everything available at our fingertips, but this is also a fact that there are more side effects as well.

Our data is all over the globe, and you never know who will use it against you. That’s why any IT firm that uses the customer’s data should make sure that its platforms are well-secured.

Stay tuned with us if you want to know more about some security implementations available in the IT world. We will be back with more details.