Vulnerabilities are flaws in a system that allow threats to occur and attract threat actors to take advantage of them. The exponential development of API usage in today's digital environment increases the potential of attacks on those APIs
REST (Representational State Transfer) is an architectural paradigm for establishing web services that define a set of requirements. REST API is a straightforward and flexible approach to accessing online services without having to go through any processing. Because REST utilizes less bandwidth, is simple, and adaptable, it is recommended over the more robust Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) technology. It's used to retrieve or send data from a web service.
There are 6 constraints that any web service must meet:
API connections are considered to be highly vulnerable. The OWASP top 10 vulnerabilities for API security are-
The following are the steps to check API vulnerability
4 most used authentication methods for REST APIs are-
SOAP stands for Simple Object Access Protocol. SOAP is a protocol that was developed before REST was introduced. The major goal of SOAP was to make it simple for programs written in a variety of platforms and programming languages to share data.
REST stands for Representational State Transfer. It was created with the intent of working with media components, files, and even objects on a specific hardware device. A RESTful web service is one that is defined using REST principles. For working with the required components, a Restful service would use the standard HTTP verbs GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE.
REST is a better choice for simple, CRUD-oriented services, because of the way REST repurposes HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE). It is also popular because it’s lightweight and has a smaller learning curve.
SOAP, on the other hand, has standards for security, addressing, etc. Your requirements will determine which type of web service you will implement unless already decided by the WS Provider.
Basic authentication, API key and Bearer Authentication. For security reasons, most REST APIs require authentication to prevent random users from being able to create, update, or delete information incorrectly or maliciously. Basic Authentication, Bearer Authentication, and API Key are authentication mechanisms used by REST APIs. OAuth is an authorization mechanism
API is a bigger umbrella, and REST API is a unique type of API prevalent among mobile and cloud applications. API is basically a set of functions and procedures that allow one application to access the feature of other application, REST is an architectural style for networked applications on the web
OAuth is a delegated authorization framework for REST/APIs. It enables apps to obtain limited access (scopes) to a user's data without giving away a user's password.
APIs authenticate requests using basic authentication with your email address and password, with your email address and an API token, or with an OAuth access token. All methods of authentication set the authorization header differently.
RestAssured can be stated as one of the best frameworks for REST API testing as it is simple to use, modular and one can manipulate the request in any way. However, a software engineer has his own preferences as someone might chose RobotFramework to automate API and someone else might decide to go with HTTP Request library embedded into the programming language.
Postman is used for API testing. It is an HTTP client that tests HTTP requests, utilizing a graphical user interface, through which we obtain different types of responses that need to be subsequently validated
Yes, REST APIs are encrypted. It uses HTTP and supports Transport layer security (TLS) encryption. This helps to keep an internet connection private and checks the data exchange is encrypted. We can verify a website with TLS if it has HTTPS at the start of the URL.
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