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API security testing analyzer

DETAILS: Tier: Ultimate Offering: GitLab.com, Self-managed, GitLab Dedicated

Perform Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) of web APIs to help discover bugs and potential security issues that other QA processes may miss. Use API security testing in addition to other GitLab Secure security scanners and your own test processes. You can run DAST API tests either as part your CI/CD workflow, on-demand, or both.

WARNING: Do not run API security testing against a production server. Not only can it perform any function that the API can, it may also trigger bugs in the API. This includes actions like modifying and deleting data. Only run API security testing against a test server.

API security testing can test the following web API types:

  • REST API
  • SOAP
  • GraphQL
  • Form bodies, JSON, or XML

NOTE: DAST API has been re-branded to API Security Testing. As part of this re-branding the template name and variable prefixes have also been updated. The old template and variable names continue to work until the next major release, 18.0 in May 2025.

When API security testing scans run

When run in your CI/CD pipeline, API security testing scanning runs in the dast stage by default. To ensure API security testing scanning examines the latest code, ensure your CI/CD pipeline deploys changes to a test environment in a stage before the dast stage.

If your pipeline is configured to deploy to the same web server on each run, running a pipeline while another is still running could cause a race condition in which one pipeline overwrites the code from another. The API to be scanned should be excluded from changes for the duration of a API security testing scan. The only changes to the API should be from the API security testing scanner. Changes made to the API (for example, by users, scheduled tasks, database changes, code changes, other pipelines, or other scanners) during a scan could cause inaccurate results.

Example API security testing scanning configurations

The following projects demonstrate API security testing scanning:

Get support or request an improvement

To get support for your particular problem, use the getting help channels.

The GitLab issue tracker on GitLab.com is the right place for bugs and feature proposals about API Security and API security testing. Use ~"Category:API Security" label when opening a new issue regarding API security testing to ensure it is quickly reviewed by the right people. Refer to our review response SLO to understand when you should receive a response.

Search the issue tracker for similar entries before submitting your own, there's a good chance somebody else had the same issue or feature proposal. Show your support with an emoji reaction or join the discussion.

When experiencing a behavior not working as expected, consider providing contextual information:

  • GitLab version if using a self-managed instance.
  • .gitlab-ci.yml job definition.
  • Full job console output.
  • Scanner log file available as a job artifact named gl-api-security-scanner.log.

WARNING: Sanitize data attached to a support issue. Remove sensitive information, including: credentials, passwords, tokens, keys, and secrets.

Glossary

  • Assert: Assertions are detection modules used by checks to trigger a vulnerability. Many assertions have configurations. A check can use multiple Assertions. For example, Log Analysis, Response Analysis, and Status Code are common Assertions used together by checks. Checks with multiple Assertions allow them to be turned on and off.
  • Check: Performs a specific type of test, or performed a check for a type of vulnerability. For example, the SQL Injection Check performs DAST testing for SQL Injection vulnerabilities. The API security testing scanner is comprised of several checks. Checks can be turned on and off in a profile.
  • Profile: A configuration file has one or more testing profiles, or sub-configurations. You may have a profile for feature branches and another with extra testing for a main branch.