Hacking APIs

Introduction

Today’s researchers estimate that application programming interface (API) calls make up more than 80 percent of all web traffic. Yet despite their prevalence, web application hackers often fail to test them. And these vital business assets can be riddled with catastrophic weaknesses.

As you’ll see in this book, APIs are an excellent attack vector. After all, they’re designed to expose information to other applications. To compromise an organization’s most sensitive data, you may not need to cleverly penetrate the perimeter of a network firewall, bypass an advanced antivirus, and release a zero day; instead, your task could be as ...