The Top 10 API Security Testing Tools

Invicti API Security provides robust API protection through security testing to prevent potential breaches. It crawls every app to give you a comprehensive insight into the status of each API, as well as resolves issues without manual intervention.

Invicti API Security identifies hidden, lost, forgotten, and undocumented APIs embedded within your software development lifecycle. It conducts accurate and consistent security scans, covering REST, SOAP, and GraphQL APIs with security checks. These checks combine Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) with proof-based scanning technology to provide accurate, actionable data to help inform remediation efforts. It also offers support for importing and discovering API definitions. The platform also leverages AI integrations to enhance its detection ability, as well as help predict application risk. Finally, Invicti API Security integrates seamlessly into existing developer workflows, ensuring comprehensive and consistent security checks across the entire SDLC, no matter how frequent.

Overall, Invicti API Security is ideal for organizations using an extensive number of APIs, especially those needing to integrate security seamlessly within their development processes to safeguard against vulnerabilities.

Acunetix is a comprehensive web application and API security solution for developers. It streamlines the discovery, testing, and patching of vulnerabilities in both web applications and REST, SOAP, and GraphQL APIs, including SQL injections, cross site scripting, misconfigurations, exposed databases, and out-of-band threats.

Once deployed, Acunetix utilizes both Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) and Interactive Application Security Testing (IAST) to automatically discover all APIs, including hidden and undocumented APIs. This gives you visibility into previously overlooked vulnerabilities. Acunetix conducts thorough definition imports and comprehensive security checks on the detected APIs. As vulnerabilities are discovered, Acunetix generates detailed reports—even before the full scan completes—equipping you with actionable insights to prioritize remediation efforts. These reports come with proof of exploit to help eliminate false positives. The platform also helps facilitate remediation by highlighting the exact lines of code that need correction.

In terms of setup, Acunetix integrates seamlessly with existing development pipelines, thanks to out-of-the-box compatibility with widely-used tools like Jira and Jenkins.

Overall, we recommend Acunetix to any development team that wants to identify and remediate vulnerabilities more effectively and efficiently, and particularly those that would benefit from detailed remediation guidance.

42Crunch offers API Security Testing tools designed to identify and address potential security vulnerabilities in APIs. The platform includes an API Security Audit tool that focuses on performing static analysis on your OpenAPI definition file. This gives security issue information that adheres to the OWASP API Security Top 10 criteria. The platform also includes an API Conformance Scan that automatically generates a report that captures vulnerabilities like data leakage, weak authentication mechanisms, and injection vulnerabilities within the OpenAPI contract.

42Crunch provides dynamic testing capabilities, in addition to static analysis. This is delivered through its API Scan tool. This tool mimics real API traffic using randomly generated requests and parameters, ensuring the API behaves as expected under real-world conditions and in alignment with the audited OpenAPI contract. 42Crunch is designed to streamline the security integration process with tools that can be accessed from various developer IDEs and CI/CD platforms. The solution offers over 300 security checks, providing immediate security scoring, actionable reports, and live endpoint testing. 42Crunch is designed to aid developers in securing APIs right from the design phase, allowing security teams to maintain oversight and enforce API security policies.

Data Theorem’s API Security product offers a range of tools to inventory and simulate attacks on APIs and to remediate complex security issues (particularly within the CI/CD pipeline). The engine behind this solution is geared towards continuous identification of vulnerabilities, offering real-time alerts and fixes for potential security issues in both multi-cloud and on-premise environments. The platform can detect configuration and implementation flaws across all applications and APIs; this ensures you have insight into how your applications are operating. The system also aids in automatically rectifying problems, ensuring a streamlined and repeatable process for IT and development teams.

API Secure provides a comprehensive security check across critical areas, including authentication, authorization, encryption, availability, and auditing. The Data Theorem platform offers real-time compliance reporting and helps to identify vulnerabilities in the CI pipeline. The solution can be customized to suit various roles with specific application needs; this includes infrastructure engineers, security teams, and developers, thereby enhancing collaborative efforts in vulnerability management. Data Theorem emphasizes a continuous approach to API security, focusing not only on the immediate perimeter, but also on continuously monitoring and addressing potential threats, such as shadow APIs and leaky data.

APIsec is a provider of automated API security testing services. The company facilitates the comprehensive analysis of APIs during the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). APIsec’s platform allows users to discover, ingest, and analyze APIs, thereby enabling the creation and execution of numerous custom attack scenarios against each application in development before it goes into production. By simply providing a list of endpoints and methods, APIsec can automatically generate thousands of attack playbooks. These playbooks test every facet of an API, covering the OWASP API Top 10 and other advanced security categories. The platform has a focus on “shift-left” testing; APIsec encourages identifying security vulnerabilities early in the SDLC.

APIsec supports both scheduled and manual penetration tests against APIs to ensure that they are free from vulnerabilities. These tests can be incorporated into the CI/CD pipeline or executed in production. The platform provides accurate results with minimal false positives, pinpointing vulnerabilities such as BOLA, ABAC, and RBAC. APIsec also delivers a training course, known as the APIsecUniversity, which provides educational resources on API security. Courses cover API security basics as well as expert penetration testing, allowing for the certification of developers and security teams in API security. The training aligns with compliance and frameworks like PCI-DSS, HIPAA, Hi-TRUST, SOC II, NIST, and MITRE.

Cequence API Sentinel offers visibility and monitoring capabilities for both internal and external APIs. The platform is designed to enhance the security and compliance of APIs through granting organizations insight into potential vulnerabilities and coding inconsistencies. Cequence provides a comprehensive view of APIs through integrating with various network infrastructure components such as API gateways, proxies, and load balancers. API Sentinel also identifies and aids in the remediation of coding errors, thereby reducing the chance of data breaches or fraudulent activities. The platform can be deployed quickly across diverse environments, integrating seamlessly with existing API management infrastructure. API Sentinel can be deployed as SaaS, public cloud, data center, or hybrid models. The platform is designed for easy incorporation within an organization’s existing infrastructure.

API Sentinel integrates with a variety of network infrastructure components, thereby ensuring comprehensive visibility into public-facing, internal, managed, unmanaged, and third-party APIs. To help manage data effectively, API Sentinel utilizes customizable ML-based sensitive data analysis, enabling quick detection and rectification of potential compliance violations involving sensitive data. To further ensure coding consistency, API Sentinel provides continuous risk assessments, flagging high-risk APIs and facilitating collaborative remediation efforts between security and development teams. The platform supports integration through REST-based APIs, allowing streamlined operations with CI/CD framework tools and facilitating real-time security throughout the API lifecycle.

Burp Scanner was developed by leading web security researchers and offers specialized API security testing, designed to increase the visibility of APIs in modern web applications and microservices. The platform’s testing regime mirrors the methods of manual testing, ensuring an extensive and varied series of tests. Its advanced crawling algorithm, combined with the ability to manage JavaScript-rich web apps and various API definitions, offers users a comprehensive view of potential attack surfaces. The tool’s automation features enable it to streamline API security testing workflows, enhancing overall productivity. Burp serves over 70,000 users across 16,000+ organizations.

This platform is specifically designed to parse API definitions, including OpenAPI v3 REST API definitions in both JSON and YAML formats. These capabilities empower organizations to uncover the full extent of a potential attack surface, uncovering APIs that may not be typically intended for web browsers. This level of enhanced and extended visibility is a vital aspect of a comprehensive security evaluation strategy within our API-connected digital environment. Burp is looking to expand its capabilities and features; these improvements cover refining API detection and scanning methods, especially when an API specification might not be readily available.

Postman offers a platform tailored for building and utilizing APIs. Their solution is aimed at streamlining the API lifecycle and facilitating collaboration. Central to the platform is an API repository where users can store and manage various API-related artifacts including specifications, documentation, test results, and other key metrics. The platform also delivers a suite of tools to accelerate processes including API design, testing, documentation, and sharing. Governance features provide guidance to developers on API best practices and internal design rules.

Postman features workspaces that allow users to categorize and collaborate on their API projects, be it on a personal level, with a team, partners, or even publicly. Integration capabilities mean that Postman can connect with numerous software development tools. This extensibility is further improved by Postman’s API and open-source technologies. These capabilities inform developers of organizational security policies during the API development stage. Users are presented with a concise reporting dashboard that offers insights on the overall API landscape, highlighting areas of concern and assisting in resource allocation. These alerts include Security Audit reports and will alert users to potential token exposures.

Traceable offers an API security testing solution geared towards identifying vulnerabilities in APIs. The software covers an extensive range of security issues, including the OWASP API top 10, as well as notable CVEs like Java, Go, and Node JS. Traceable facilitates rapid API scans, ensuring there’s no delay in the development-to-release cycle. Detailed reports generated by Traceable include information such as CVSS/CWE scores for risk assessment and vulnerability findings to help teams address potential security issues before API deployment. With an emphasis on accuracy, Traceable boasts minimal false positives in its results.

The tool’s real-time testing approach focuses on active APIs, ensuring relevant and targeted testing. The platform integrates seamlessly with various systems, emphasizing “closed loop” API security and automation, simplifying the otherwise intricate processes of API and application security. Traceable offers a comprehensive testing scope, from session-based anomalies like BOLA to various API protocols like REST, GraphQL, and SOAP. It can even generate tests from live traffic and other sources, integrates smoothly into the DevSecOps environment. From here, the platform can provide virtual patching capabilities to offer immediate protection while longer-term solutions are developed.

Wallarm is a company focused on API security, providing tools to discover potential vulnerabilities within an organization’s API portfolio and actively counter real-time API threats. The platform allows businesses to identify and monitor their entire range of APIs, ensuring improved management of potential security risks. It is also able to test modern and legacy web applications; this gives you extensive visibility and assures that your entire development is secure. The platform readily integrates with CI testing tools and frameworks including Jenkins, Gitlab, Selenium, and CircleCI.

Through analyzing actual traffic, Wallarm can generate OpenAPI specifications; this ensures that security teams maintain full visibility over their systems. In addition, the platform offers protection against a variety of threats, including those specific to APIs, account takeovers, malicious bots, and L7 DDoS attacks. For swift incident responses, Wallarm facilitates streamlined processes (with comprehensive visibility) whilst delivering intelligent triggers and threat verification tools.