Security Notes
  • Whoami
  • Pentesting
    • WEP-Pen
      • Reconnaissance
      • Enumeration
      • OWSAP TOP 10
        • Injection
          • Cross Site Scripting
            • Cross Site Scripting
            • Exploitation
            • Protections
          • SQL Injection
            • SQL Injection Overview
          • NoSQL Injection
          • CRLF Injection
          • XML Injection
        • Broken Access Control
          • Path Traversal
          • Sensitive Cookie with Improper SameSite Attribute
          • Link Following
          • Incorrect Default Permissions
          • Information disclosure
          • CSRF
            • csrf checklist
          • 403 bypass
          • Exposure of WSDL File Containing Sensitive Information
          • bussiness logic checklist
          • 2FA bypass checklist
          • admin panal checklist
          • idor checklist
          • Authentication checklist
          • reset_password_checklist
          • ATO
        • Cryptographic Failures
          • Cryptographic Failure
          • Weak Encoding for Password
          • Improper Following of a Certificate's Chain of Trust
            • Understanding Digital Certificates : Self-Signed and CA-Signed Certificate **
            • Transport Layer Security (TLS) and SSL **
          • Clear Text Transmission Of Sensitive Data
            • SSLStripping **
        • Insecure Design
        • Security Misconfiguration
          • CORS Miscofigration
          • Mail Server Misconfiguration
        • Vulnerable and Outdated Components
          • Using Components with Known Vulnerabilities
        • Identification and Authentication Failures
          • JWT Hacking
          • SAML Authentication bypass
        • Software and Data Integrity Failures
          • mass assignment
          • PostMessage Vulnerabilities
            • PostMessage Vulnerabilities
            • Blocking main page to steal postmessage
            • Bypassing SOP with Iframes - part 1
            • Bypassing SOP with Iframes - part 2
            • Steal postmessage modifying iframe location
        • Security Logging and Monitoring Failures
        • Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF)
          • SSRF
      • Checklists
        • aem misconfiguration
        • exif_geo
        • xss
        • Session Management
        • Authorization
        • cookie
        • Django
        • Symfony
        • json
        • bypass rate limit
        • Rce
        • Register Page
      • eWPTXv2 Preparation
        • Encoding & Filtering
        • Evasion Basics
        • Cross-site scripting (XSS)
        • XSS Filter Evasion
        • Cross-site request forgery (CSRF
        • HTML5
      • API-Pen
        • API Discovry
        • Reverse Engineering API Documentation
        • Excessive Data Exposure
        • Vulnerability Scanning
        • API Authentication Attacks
          • Classic Authentication Attacks
          • API Token Attacks
        • API Authorization Attacks
          • Broken Object Level Authorization (BOLA)
          • Broken Function Level Authorization
        • Improper Assets Management
        • Mass Assignment
        • SSRF
        • Injection Attacks in API
        • Evasive Maneuvers
        • GraphQL Vulnerabilities
    • NET-Pen
      • Active Directory Pentesting
        • Active Directory Components
        • Initial Attack Vectors
          • LLMNR Poisoning
          • SMB Relay Attacks
          • IPv6 Attacks ( IPv6 DNS Takeover )
          • Printer Hacking
          • Methodology
          • Some Other Attacks
            • Zerologon (CVE-2020-1472)
            • PrintNightmare (CVE-2021-1675)
        • Post-Compromise Attacks
          • Pass Attacks
          • Kerberoasting Attack
          • Token Impersonation Attack
          • LNK File Attack
          • GPP / cPassword Attacks
          • Mimikatz
          • Methodology
        • We've Compromised the Domain
          • Dumping the NTDS.dit
          • Golden Ticket Attacks
          • Methodology
        • Case Study
        • Password Attacks
      • Attack Vectors by Port
        • FTP 21
        • SSH 22
        • Telnet 23 - 2323
        • SMTP 25
        • DNS 53
        • Kerberos 88
        • POP 110-995
        • RPC 111
        • Ident 113
        • NNTP 119
        • NetBIOS 137-138
        • SMB / Samba 135-139, 445
        • MSRPC 135
        • SNMP 161
        • LDAP 389,636
        • Modbus 502
        • OpenSSL 1337
        • Ms-SQL 1433
        • Oracle Listener 1521 1522 1529
        • NFS 2049
        • MySql 3306
        • RDP 3389
        • ADB Android Debug Bridge 5555
        • WinRM 5985 5986
        • VNC 5800 5900
        • Redis 6379
        • Unreal IRC 6667
        • Tomcat 8080
        • MongoDB 27017
        • http 80
      • Network basics
      • Information Gathering
      • Privilege Escalation
        • Windows Privilege Escalation
        • Linux Privilege Escalation
    • write-ups
      • How i found a Privilege Escalation via Impersonation Features feature
      • How I was able to discover ATO Via IDOR vulnerability
      • Easy full Account Takeover via Facebook OAuth Misconfiguration
Powered by GitBook
On this page
  1. Pentesting
  2. WEP-Pen
  3. API-Pen

Reverse Engineering API Documentation

Understanding API Endpoints

API Endpoints are specific URLs that handle requests for data or actions in an application. They serve as communication channels between different parts of an application, ensuring data flows correctly. For instance, endpoints like /api/v1/user may retrieve user profile data, while /api/v1/comments allows for posting or retrieving comments.

Importance for Penetration Testers

For penetration testers, API endpoints represent potential entry points for finding vulnerabilities. Each endpoint can be examined for security flaws, such as:

  • Authentication Issues

  • Injection Flaws

  • Data Leakage

Identifying and analyzing these endpoints helps map out an application’s attack surface, uncovering weaknesses that could be exploited.

How to Identify API Endpoints

Identifying API endpoints is crucial for further analysis. Here are common methods:

  1. Manual Inspection

    • Check the application’s documentation (e.g., https://example.com/api/docs).

    • Search for "API documentation" on the application’s website or Google.

  2. Traffic Interception

    • Manual Documentation using Postman:

      • Create a Postman workspace to save collections.

      • Use the Postman Interceptor extension to capture requests while interacting with the application.

    • Automatic Documentation:

      • Use mitmproxy (man-in-the-middle proxy) to capture web traffic.

      • Save the captured requests and convert them into Open API 3.0 format using the tool mitmproxy2swagger.

Step-by-Step Process for Automatic Documentation

  1. Run mitmproxy in the terminal to start capturing traffic.

  2. Configure your proxy settings to match the port where mitmweb is listening (default is 8080).

  3. Explore the target application to gather all traffic.

  4. Save the captured requests from mitmweb.

  5. Use the saved flow file to generate an Open API YAML file:

    sudo mitmproxy2swagger -i flows -o speca.yml -p http://example.api.com -f flow

  6. Edit the YAML file as needed, ensuring to include any ignored endpoints.

  7. Remove ignore: from endpoints you wish to include using a text editor.

  8. Validate and correct formatting by running the mitmproxy2swagger script again, adding --examples flag for enriched documentation.

    sudo mitmproxy2swagger -i flows -o speca.yml -p http://example.api.com -f flow --examples
PreviousAPI DiscovryNextExcessive Data Exposure

Last updated 7 months ago