Exploiting authentication and authorization vulnerabilities in APIs

Successfully exploiting an authentication or authorization vulnerability can lead to unauthorized access to resources and functions, data breaches, and, in the worst-case scenario, a full account takeover.

The authentication mechanism is the first line of defense in an API; it answers the question “Who are you?” and plays a very important role in identifying users using the API. Broken authentication is used to refer to an authentication mechanism that has a vulnerability that can be exploited or can lead to an attacker being able to fully bypass it. When this mechanism is compromised, an attacker can successfully log in as another user and access their data. After figuring out who a user is, the next mechanism to come into play is the authorization mechanism. It answers the question, “What are you allowed to do?” This mechanism helps define the role of the logged-in user, and what resources...