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Pentesting APIs

You're reading from   Pentesting APIs A practical guide to discovering, fingerprinting, and exploiting APIs

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Product type Paperback
Published in Sep 2024
Publisher Packt
ISBN-13 9781837633166
Length 290 pages
Edition 1st Edition
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Author (1):
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Maurício Harley Maurício Harley
Author Profile Icon Maurício Harley
Maurício Harley
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Table of Contents (18) Chapters Close

Preface 1. Part 1: Introduction to API Security
2. Chapter 1: Understanding APIs and their Security Landscape FREE CHAPTER 3. Chapter 2: Setting Up the Penetration Testing Environment 4. Part 2: API Information Gathering and AuthN/AuthZ Testing
5. Chapter 3: API Reconnaissance and Information Gathering 6. Chapter 4: Authentication and Authorization Testing 7. Part 3: API Basic Attacks
8. Chapter 5: Injection Attacks and Validation Testing 9. Chapter 6: Error Handling and Exception Testing 10. Chapter 7: Denial of Service and Rate-Limiting Testing 11. Part 4: API Advanced Topics
12. Chapter 8: Data Exposure and Sensitive Information Leakage 13. Chapter 9: API Abuse and Business Logic Testing 14. Part 5: API Security Best Practices
15. Chapter 10: Secure Coding Practices for APIs 16. Index 17. Other Books You May Enjoy

Preventing data leakage

To eliminate or at least reduce the chances of suffering data leakage on your API or the application behind it, a multi-layered approach is possibly one of the best options. This involves secure coding practices, robust AuthN, and careful handling of sensitive information.

The first line of defense is secure API design – only create the interfaces you need. In other words, only expose the data your API requires to function. Avoid open queries that could allow unauthorized access. In GraphQL, tools such as query whitelisting act as bouncers, restricting data requests and preventing the over-fetching of sensitive information.

Source code best practices are a vital topic too. When interacting with databases, one important point to keep in mind is to use parameterized queries instead of simply forwarding what the user provides as input to them. Think of these as pre-prepared invitations to the database – they prevent attackers from manipulating...

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