API Security Best Practices
Key areas to review when assessing APIs, authentication and business logic.
API testing should examine more than transport security. Authorization, object-level access, rate controls, schema handling and business workflows often determine the real impact of an API weakness.
Core review areas
Authentication
Review token handling, expiry, refresh flows, authentication boundaries and credential exposure.
Authorization
Test object-level and function-level access with controlled identities and predictable resource identifiers.
Input validation
Test schema enforcement, type confusion, unexpected parameters, injection and unsafe file or URL handling.
Abuse controls
Assess rate limiting, pagination, resource exhaustion and workflow abuse where relevant.
Evidence to capture
- Endpoint and method under test.
- Authentication and authorization context.
- Request and response evidence with sensitive values redacted.
- Security impact and affected business function.
- Clear remediation and retest criteria.
Assess an API?
We can scope API testing around exposed endpoints, integrations and business-critical workflows.