Like API management, API security is a crucial stage in the development of applications. APIs ensure that services or systems that might be in danger don’t ultimately jeopardise the system or cause malfunctions at all of the system’s intersections. As co-dependency between cloud apps and integrated platforms grows, connecting services to APIs is essential. The use of suitable API Security Tools is also crucial.
Applications and services can communicate with one another thanks to Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), which have built compliance with the software’s requirements for performance, security, and functionality.
Data can be exposed due to API vulnerabilities and setup errors. Threat actors use APIs as entry gates into networks and systems, a recent report showing “95% of companies had an API security incident in the last 12 months”. Tools for evaluating APIs and determining whether the build meets expectations regarding functionality, performance, security, and dependability are available to decrease risks and prevent breaches. There is a large selection of API security testing tools available. Tools for API automation testing are typically used in CI/CD pipelines because they offer the effectiveness required to maintain rapid development without compromising security.
Top API Security Tools
1. Katalon:
Katalon Studio is an end-to-end testing automation tool for desktop, mobile, and API apps. For a variety of platforms, including Windows, Linux, and Mac OS, Katalon Studio provides both UI and API/Web services. API, WebUI, mobile testing, desktop apps, and combining capabilities are a few of the significant characteristics of Katalon. The solution offers various parameterisation features and instructions, as well as SOAP and REST calls. It supports CI/CD integration, AssertJ, data-driven methodologies, and automated and exploratory testing, offering Manual and Groovy Scripting modes. It is appropriate for stakeholders with various skill levels and may be integrated with the test orchestration software Katalon TestOps.
2. JMeter:
This is a robust tool that can perform various API SecurityTesting. It is a versatile tool that can evaluate API security and perform functional and load testing. It is not constrained to numerous static resources and may assess performance and security using dynamic aspects in its operations. JMeter allows API results to be replayed and tests to be looked at from other perspectives. It is a flexible tool capable of testing numerous protocols, including LDAP, FTP, Mail, and Web.
3. APIsec
APIsec is the only 100% automated API security testing platform that enables comprehensive coverage of the entire breadth of a company’s API inventory and methods.
The platform is comprised of three key components that work together to ensure continuous API security testing:
- API Analyzer: With API Analyzer, you can dissect your company’s APIs down to every endpoint, call, and input parameter so that the engine knows how best to attack it.
- API Attacker: API Attacker is an attack generator that applies hundreds of different scenarios and maps them onto your API to create custom-tailored attacks based on your unique API architecture.
- API Scanner: The engine that searches for anything unexpected in the test generated by API Attacker and generates a report.
On top of continuously monitoring your APIs across a massive list of known vulnerabilities, our AI-based platform is the only solution that can automatically write and execute thousands of test cases generated based on the unique architecture of your APIs.
APIsec provides ten times the coverage of manual pen-testing at one-tenth the cost while addressing the most common API attack vector traditional security techniques struggle to tackle: the business logic that powers APIs.
4. Postman:
Postman is a valuable tool for assessing API security in Rest-Based Applications. It began as a Chrome plug-in but has since expanded to work on Mac, Linux, and Windows systems. It can carry out in-depth illustrative API security and is essential in providing integrated solutions for an application. It is a simple application that allows users to communicate with one another by sending requests and responses. Sharing information throughout the platform is simple. You may test, run, and document features using the interactive interface, which enhances API testing.
5. Taurus:
Taurus offers a framework conducive to automation and intended for continuous testing. Taurus can manage API testing when coupled with JMeter. On top of other tools like Locust, the Grinder, Selenium, and Gatling, the tool can also operate as an abstraction layer. Teams may incorporate performance testing into the CI/CD cycle thanks to this level of integration. The key benefit of Taurus is that you can create tests in YAML, which is editable and human-readable. Because of this, you can easily describe a test in a text file and even a complete script in just ten lines of text. Teams can utilize this functionality in a JSON or YAML file to describe their test.
6. crAPI:
Teams can use Completely Ridiculous API (crAPI) to learn about an API’s ten most crucial security features in a mock setting. It gives a solid example of how not to secure APIs because crAPI has practically every security flaw that APIs shouldn’t have. crAPI comprises various services created using the following techniques and microservices architecture.
- Identity: Endpoints for user and authentication
- Web: main Ingress service
- Community: Endpoints for community blogs and comments
- Mailhog: a mail provider
- Workshop: Endpoints for the workshop for vehicles
- Postgres: SQL database
- Mongo: NoSQL database
7. Bright:
Bright employs a dev-first methodology to test APIs and web applications, allowing developers to “shift left” and take control of security testing. REST API, SOAP, GraphQL, and Websockets are a few of the API architectures tested. Bright enhances DevOps and CI/CD procedures, allowing developers to find and repair vulnerabilities quickly and frequently during each build. Bright validates each security finding automatically, eliminating all false positives and the requirement for time-consuming, expensive manual validation that slows down your rapid release cycles.
What to Look For in API Security Testing Tools
- Support for API styles: whether the tool supports your organisation’s current and future API architecture is a crucial factor to consider. If REST, SOAP, and GraphQL are used in your systems, the tool should support them. Only requests appropriate for a given API format, such as JSON for REST and GraphQL, should be sent by API testing tools.
- CI/CD Integration: Ensure that API security tests can be run locally to facilitate simple debugging and can be automated in your pipeline using CI/CD technologies. Doing so makes it feasible to warn developers about vulnerabilities and give them time to fix these vulnerabilities before moving forward with development.
- Examine whether the tool employs crawling approaches to find API routes or uses standards like OpenAPI (Swagger), Postman, or GraphQL introspection for far more accurate identification of API functionality.
- For quick CI/CD workflows, testing speed and the speed at which API tests execute can be crucial. Tests should only take a few minutes; if they last for several hours or even days, the CI/CD pipeline may be damaged, and productivity may suffer.
Conclusion
For the creation of any product or application, API security is crucial. You may use this list of the top 6 API security tools to make an informed decision about the best tools on the market and select the one that supports and utilises their particular methods and tools.
Mosopefoluwa is a certified Cybersecurity Analyst and Technical writer. She has experience working as a Security Operations Center (SOC) Analyst with a history of creating relevant cybersecurity content for organizations and spreading security awareness. She volunteers as an Opportunities and Resources Writer with a Nigerian based NGO where she curated weekly opportunities for women. She is also a regular writer at Bora.
Her other interests are law, volunteering and women’s rights. In her free time, she enjoys spending time at the beach, watching movies or burying herself in a book.
